Colorado Springs Windstorm Brings Power & Internet Outages
On Wednesday, December 15th, Colorado Springs had a major windstorm with winds up to 100MPH. There were hundreds of trees blown over and 48 hours later, power is still out to thousands. Along with power outages, there are internet outages across the city. Colorado Computer Support has five client sites on Comcast and Xfinity that have been without service since mid-day Wednesday. Fortunately for them, even though their primary internet is down, they are still able to work because of our business continuity plan that is in place. Each of these client sites has a firewall with cellular failover. When the internet goes down, the firewalls automatically roll over to use the internet over AT&T or Verizon.
What this storm has shown, is how critical internet access is to our daily operations. With so much of our business in the cloud, it is critical that businesses have a plan for when the internet fails. For one of our clients, the last estimate was one full week before the internet will be restored. While we do not often have disasters in Colorado, we do need to anticipate them. If the internet is out for a week, can you go home and work, or does your business grind to a halt? If your business would have to shut down, then it is worth it to spend a little on insurance. Give us a call for options for your business continuity planning.
The other major impact of the storm was power outages. Most of the time battery backup is planned for short outages of less than an hour duration. There are many companies that will not have power for days. One of our long-time clients is Colorado Standby. They are a generator reseller and installation company. If you need power for more than an hour, please reach out to them. https://www.coloradostandby.com/