All businesses, regardless of size, need to be prepared in case of disaster. The ability of a business to get back up and running after disaster strikes is much easier if steps are taken before the disaster to prepare for such a possibility.

Disasters can take many forms and the severity of impact on the business can vary from power outages that disrupt operations for a short period of time to total destruction of your operations – including all your vital data that is not stored offsite.

Small businesses don’t have the luxury of relegating emergency preparations to a specialized department, so your planning must be scaled accordingly. With that in mind, Alexandria Small Business Development Center and Dominion have identified the most effective and practical guidelines to be those of the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the SBA Small Business Disaster Preparedness Guide found here. You can also see Dominion Energy’s Outage Safety & Preparation information here.

Please contact Alexandria SBDC if you have further questions about preparations.

If City of Alexandria businesses have suffered the impacts of a disaster or are experiencing economic downturn, Alexandria SBDC will help connect you to Business Recovery resources.

This page and resources were made possible by support from the Dominion Foundation.