Weather and your computers…

With the probable approach of Hurricane Irene here in New England this weekend, I’ve received quite a few emails asking me if anything special should be done to protect computers during this impending storm…

My answer is yes. You want to be sue not only to protect your hardware, which is a valuable investment, but just as important you want to be sure you protect all the valuable information on your computers, such as your photos, documents, etc…

And we all know that Hurricane Irene isn’t the only extreme weather that we experience here in New England that can cause problems. Bad weather can also include floods, ice/snow storms, powerful electrical storms & lightning and from time to time, very high winds. This year the weather's been quite extreme and we even experienced an earthquake earlier today.....

So, even if we aren’t in the direct line of this impending storm, we could still experience serious problems with our electricity, phones or cable services, not just in our homes, but in our neighborhood, community and during some storms – even much larger geographical areas can e impacted.

So consider taking a few precautions beforehand:

• Perform a complete backup of your system, and if you do this and save it to an “external hard drive” you may want to consider putting the external hard drive in a waterproof container and storing it “off premise” just in case.


• If you don’t have an external hard drive, but have a portable hard drive or use flash drives/memory sticks – be sure to back up all your valuable data to your portable device and put that portable device in a waterproof container, even multiple zip-lock bas will work and put it with your important papers that you have ready with you should you need to evacuate..


• Power off and unplug all equipment, including the computers, routers, modems, monitors and printers – When, I would do this as soon as the high winds or lightning begin OR for those of you who might live near the coast, as soon as you receive your ”evacuation notice.



• Be sure to unplug items from standby power sources and power off the standby power source



• Any equipment that may be in danger of flooding due to low ground (ie. basements and first floors) should be moved to a higher table top or even to a higher floor.



• Equipment that is situated near windows or in a structure that may be affected by the storm, should be moved or at least wrapped in plastic and stowed in a secure place.

Obviously, we hope you never have to use these precautions, but like anything else, with a few simple precautions, you just might save expensive equipment and loss of valuable information or photos that are irreplaceable… Be safe and don't take unnecessary chances..

And if you are curious as to what's happening with this and other weather events, while your computer is up and running, you might want to check out these weather websites, which we are listing in alphabetical order..

http://www.accuweather.com/
http://www.intellicast.com/
http://www.noaa.gov/
http://www.weather.com/
http://www.wunderground.com/