Room Alert ‘Insider Look’ – Preparing for Hurricane Jose With Room Alert

This year’s hurricane season has proven to be very impactful in the United States and beyond, with both Harvey and Irma leaving widespread damage recently in Texas, Florida and the Carribean. Heavy winds and flooding have caused power loss and property damage for millions of people. Now, Hurricane Jose is headed towards the northeast as a Category 1 storm, soon to be a tropical storm, with more named storms currently active in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

In May we published an article on business continuity and this year’s hurricane season. One of the articles we referenced predicted fewer large storms this hurricane season, which unfortunately has proven to be quite wrong. However, the primary information provided in that article about flood and power monitoring being critical to business continuity is still valid, helpful and important to consider for future planning.

Preparing for Hurricane Jose

Hurricane Jose is on its way to the northeastern United States and will begin impacting our local region beginning on Tuesday, and expected to last through Thursday. Thankfully we will be spared the intense extreme weather that Harvey and Irma brought, however we are still predicted to have tropical storm force wind and rain that can cause power outages and local flooding.

We’ve written before about how we use Room Alert, Device ManageR, and RoomAlert.com within our own facility to monitor the environment conditions within our own building and data center. Hurricanes and blizzards are the biggest types of environment factors that bring conditions to our area that can cause downtime, and a large storm like Hurricane Jose is a good time for us to review our own policies and Room Alert status.

Our IT team is currently reviewing and testing all the pertinent alerts that we have set up in Room Alert for our facility, to ensure the notifications will reach the correct people if the alerts are triggered. Staff members are also making visual inspections of all the Room Alert and sensor installations throughout the building to ensure the sensors are all clean and free of debris, and firmly connected to each Room Alert.

In just a few short months, whether we like it or not, cold weather and blizzard season will be upon us. Reviewing all our Room Alert monitors and alert status notifications right now will also help provide us with a good basis for the storms that we anticipate will hit our region in the months ahead.

Protecting your facility from storm damage

Realistically, if a storm the size of Harvey or Irma hits your area, there’s often not much you can do to prevent widespread damage to your facility. You can prepare as much as possible, and when the alerts come to your phone that your data center or freezer has lost power, this information can prove vital to establishing a timeline and recovery plan. Many customers automate responses to power losses in a data center that include everything from running a final backup, to rolling over to a backup site or facility, to performing an orderly shutdown of equipment. For food safety and cold storage applications, notification of the exact time of power loss can help establish a timeline for the same handling of stored food or materials.

If you are in a region that receives extreme weather occasionally throughout the year, Room Alert can help provide you with peace of mind knowing that if something were to happen, you would be notified immediately and begin preparing to help lessen any damages.

Having documented disaster recovery and business continuity plans are a must for every business, regardless of your location or likelihood of being impacted by an event such as a hurricane or blizzard. Monitoring your critical equipment and facilities for temperature, humidity, flood, power, smoke, motion, and more will allow you to pinpoint areas that may be the most impacted by inclement weather. This will give you the time to undertake proactive maintenance, which Is far less expensive than repairing damage after a storm. Your organization will also have documented steps to undertake to help employees remain productive both during and immediately after a major weather event.

Thankfully, by the time Hurricane Jose hits our region late tomorrow evening, it’s expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm. The possibility of weather-related damage, downtime, and data loss still exists, which is why we’re taking the steps to review all our environment monitoring with Room Alert, our sensors, and our software-based alerting and reporting.

If your organization currently has environment monitoring set up to help protect your facility, make a point to review it periodically, especially before a large storm is forecast. Taking a few minutes to review your physical equipment along with your alerts can make a significant difference during and after the storm. If your organization does not currently have any environment monitoring in place, take a look at Room Alert. With 8 models beginning at just $145, there is a Room Alert solution for every organization.

Most importantly, if your organization finds itself in the path of an extreme storm, please stay safe and let Room Alert stay in harm’s way helping to protect your facility and critical assets.

Note: The former GoToMyDevices online monitoring and management platform was migrated into RoomAlert.com in December 2017. For more information, please see our announcement article and FAQ.