The devasting effects of a fire

I’ve been banging on about IT security, worms and viruses, business continuity (aka disaster recovery) plans and the like, for some time now, and guess what – I’m going to post another one today, although this one is of a more personal nature.

Small Business Blog was hosting a dinner part on Saturday night and daughter was babysitting over the road. SBB parent went to get daughter at around 12.50 and came back 10 minutes later with five neighbours, all in pyjamas and with nothing on their feet. Their garage had gone up in flames, very quickly and when all but the dad were fast asleep.

When you see these things at first hand you realise just how devastating even a relatively small fire can be. The garage was totally destroyed, along with fridge/freezer, washing machine, tent, pool table and all the myriad of stuff generally kept in garages. Also destroyed was dad’s pride and joy – his motorbike, plus all of his modelling bits and pieces he’d spend a fortune on over the years.

Now they weren’t running a business from the house, but thinking about how many of us do and how many of us do it in garages and garden sheds, it really, really brought home how vulnerable such businesses can be. Even if this family had been running a PC-based business in a spare bedroom they wouldn’t be able to get to it because the house is uninhabitable. (The kitchen is totally trashed because it adjoined the garage so there is no water and no electrics.)

I’m now providing Internet and postal access (along with laundry facilities!) so dad can ring all his suppliers and get an inventory of goods supplied over the past couple of years. This is not an easy or a quick job as you can imagine.

So today’s message is an obvious one – check your smoke alarms, make sure everything is insured, and make sure you have some back up plans in place in case your business – or your house – goes up in flames.

Related posts: Business continuity plans; Free worm and virus support