We received the following notice last evening from SBDC friend, colleague, and social media guru, Ray Sidney-Smith.  It is important information on being prepared for any emergency, and how being prepared can save your business.  All small businesses and organizations should take note:

Dear Clients and Colleagues,

As some of you have heard, our office building, located across from the GMU Arlington campus, experienced a fire last evening. I wanted to send this (hopefully) brief message to explain a few things that will be useful to everyone.

First, the fire was on the fourth floor and so our office suite was not directly in the blaze. Unfortunately, water and smoke we are presuming did the worst it could. It’s an active investigation so we’re unable to enter the building or office suite to see the extent of the damage. No one died or was injured during this ordeal, thank goodness.

That said, thanks to my sometimes manic imperative that everything be done in our Web-based infrastructure, no data was lost or is compromised. Our business operations will continue to function as normal, perhaps with a few delays in responding as we manage around the situation. We thank you for your understanding.

Finally, I cannot impress upon everyone the importance that these “acts of God” (or, acts of arsonists, hackers and other criminals) can and will happen…it’s simply a matter of time. Please make sure you have backups (cloud and offsite) and disaster response and recovery plans in place, as we did. These are always emotional experiences, but knowing what to do and how in writing was a gift from my past self to my present self. I really hope that this experience sparks some of you to do what’s needed to be prepared.

Best regards,
Ray Sidney-Smith
W3 Consulting