Search
Close this search box.

Hurricane Amnesia Could Be the Biggest Threat to the Mainland

Share This Post

Hurricane Amnesia Could Be the Biggest Threat to the Mainland

Hurricane AmnesiaThe beginning of June is important to many Americans as it is typically associated with the beginning of summer, thanks to its proximity to the Memorial Day holiday. The first of June has another significance, though, in that it also marks the official start of the six-month Atlantic hurricane season. Fortunately, this is something for most Americans in the Southeastern United States that has been not much of a concern for the last several years. Though generally positive, not having experienced a hurricane landfall in too long has some experts saying that hurricane amnesia is the biggest threat to emergency preparedness.

Hurricane Amnesia Isn’t An Actual Hurricane

No, “Amnesia” isn’t the next in a cavalcade of hurricane names chosen to reflect modern baby-naming trends (no word on the eventual “Hurricane Katniss” as of yet), but rather a phenomenon that describes the general lack of regard for the awesome destructive power of hurricanes. By not having experienced landfall of a hurricane since Wilma in 2005, many experts are warning that Florida is ripe for disaster. If the fact that it has been over a decade since the last landfall of a hurricane in Florida wasn’t bad enough, add to that the millions of new residents that have moved to the Sunshine State over that same time period and you have a dangerous combination. It’s not uncommon for things to become less frightening the longer we’re removed from them, but conducting ourselves like there isn’t a very real and looming danger from hurricanes is a perilous way to proceed.

Coastal Damage Is Unavoidable

Not to be the harbinger of bad news, but the reality is that even though it has been ages since the last hurricane hit shore, experiencing hurricanes and their destructive forces while living in certain coastal areas is an absolute certainty. For example, though Florida and the Gulf Coast are often the most commonly associated parts of the United States Mainland to hurricane conditions, Superstorm Sandy was just barely downgraded from a hurricane status before hitting the coast of New Jersey and the destruction she caused was massive nonetheless. New Jersey and the surrounding areas suffered mightily from Sandy. In fact, the financial burden Sandy inflicted is still being felt today by many businesses that were caught off-guard by the disruption she caused to their operations. For those businesses that were prepared for the weeks of power outages and inaccessibility to their offices, however, many of them didn’t experience even the slightest lapse in operations or profitability. These were the companies that planned for any eventuality with a comprehensive Business Continuity Plan (BCP).

Act Today to Prepare for Tomorrow

Creating and maintaining a comprehensive BCP is easier than you may think, and it’s a surefire hedge against hurricane amnesia and all of the other myriad ways your business can hit a stumbling block. Whenever you experience an outage of your power, telephone system, or simply cannot access your building for whatever reason, business opportunities begin to slip away. Not only does this create a loss of the opportunity cost of time away from work, it also means that those deals are likely to move to your competitors, thereby making your already competitive market doubly challenging. Don’t let this ever happen to your company.

By adopting an off-site virtual recreation of it business telephone system to act as a hot standby in the event of an emergency, any business can prepare itself against lost productivity. With PBX Parachute, businesses vulnerable to hurricane amnesia or simply just those that are serious about protecting their operations can rest assured that nothing will stand in the way of their business continuity. Plus, because PBX Parachute is hosted and accessed remotely, employees can secure themselves safely away from any dangers and access the system from anywhere they have an internet or data connection. This guarantees that the most valuable asset of any company, its employees, will be able to contact its most valuable partners, the customer, any time and through any scenario.

Get started today with PBX Parachute today and take the steps to protect your business indefinitely.

More To Explore on the VirtualPBX Blog