DR Part 1 – What’s Your Backup Plan?

This is Part 1 of a multi-part series on disaster recovery planning.

Ok, we all have computers and other data that is critical to our long term lives.

  1. Insurance Paperwork – coverage amounts/info, phone numbers, etc.
  2. Financial Data (accounts, credit cards, safe deposit keys, mortgage info, brokerage accounts, Quicken files, etc)
  3. Photo Albums (physical and electronic); wedding pictures, baby pictures, vacations.
  4. Video Files and media – DVDs and other media we’ve acquired over the years for large expense; Let’s put games in here too. That $70 game you just bought for the kid – and 20 others just like it.
  5. Music – I have hundreds of music CDs and hundreds of tapes, plus they’ve all been converted to digital formats.
  6. Web passwords
  7. root account passwords for home and work computers, routers, phone systems, etc. Basically, think of this as your most secret stuff
  8. Address books (physical and web)
  9. Computer programs for work, home, fun – I have $1,000s of dollars worth if you add up all the license costs. MS-Office, Stock trading tools, plus all the time creating XLS files, Perl scripts, etc….

Ok, so you’ve got some important stuff. Here’s the scenario:

  • A semi truck has overturned 2 blocks from your home.
  • Another truck has hit it and there’s a cloud of deadly gas.
  • The gas causes a local gas station to blow up and all the nearby homes are on fire. Your house appears to be in the path … in 30 minutes it is gone.
  • It is 4am and you hear the loudspeaker claiming to be the county sheriff – there’s a mandatory evacuation. You have 15 minutes to leave.
  • The following day, a tornado or earthquake or something else hits your region – everybody is homeless for 100 miles around.

What do you do?
What do you take?
What do you leave behind?
Do you have a plan?

What is YOUR plan?

Yes, this scenario is bad and unlikely. Recall back to the Cold War days. Imagine you lived near a military target – likely to be hit by a nuclear warhead with little or zero warning. Or updated for terrorism today, it is a suitcase bomb (nuclear or biological) and it accidentally goes off near your home. Got a plan?