Hurricane Season IT Prep: How Louisiana Businesses Can Protect Their Data Before the Storm

I'm not writing this as a tech guy who read about floods on the internet. I'm writing this as a Denham Springs business owner who watched four feet of water pour into our computer shop in August 2016 — and had to figure out, in real time, what we had left and what we'd lost.

We survived. We came back. But a lot of our neighbors didn't.

And most people outside Louisiana barely heard about it. It was called "the forgotten flood." But here in Denham Springs, Walker, Watson, and the rest of Livingston Parish — we'll never forget it.

June 1st marks the official start of hurricane season every year. If you own a business in Baton Rouge, Denham Springs, or anywhere in South Louisiana and you haven't thought seriously about what happens to your computers, your data, and your operations when the water rises — this post is for you.

The Real IT Threats During a Louisiana Storm

When most people think about storm damage to technology, they picture a wet laptop. The reality is far more complicated — and far more expensive.

1. Flood and Water Damage to Hardware

We had four feet of water inside our shop. Every computer on a desk or floor-level shelf was destroyed. Hard drives, servers, workstations, point-of-sale terminals, network equipment — all of it. Water doesn't just stop working when it dries. Minerals and contaminants left behind corrode circuit boards for weeks after the water recedes. A machine that "looks" fine after a flood is often dead a month later.

2. Power Surges and Electrical Damage

Storm surges — the electrical kind — kill more computers than the water does. Lightning strikes, grid restoration surges, and generator back-feeds can destroy unprotected equipment in milliseconds. We've seen surge protectors melt straight through. We've seen UPS units take a direct hit and save everything behind them. The difference is preparation.

3. Extended Power Outages

After Katrina, parts of Louisiana were without power for weeks. After the 2016 flood, businesses in Denham Springs were down for days. No power means no POS, no email, no internet, no access to cloud systems, no ability to process payments. If your business can't operate without electricity and you have no continuity plan — you're effectively closed until the grid comes back.

4. Data Loss

This is the one that really hurts. Flooded hard drives. Destroyed servers. Corrupted backups that were stored on-site and went underwater with everything else. We've had customers come to us after a flood with a drive that was their only copy of ten years of customer records, QuickBooks data, photos, contracts — everything. Sometimes we can recover it. Sometimes we can't.

5. Looting and Post-Storm Crime

After major storms, opportunistic theft spikes. Broken windows, compromised doors, and damaged security systems mean equipment left behind can walk out the door. After both Katrina and the 2016 flood, we heard stories from business owners who lost equipment not to the water — but to what came after.

The 3-2-1 Backup Rule — Louisiana Edition

The IT industry standard for data backup is called the 3-2-1 rule:

• 3 copies of your data
• 2 different types of storage media
• 1 copy stored off-site

In Louisiana, we add a fourth rule: at least one copy needs to survive a Category 5 hurricane making direct landfall on your building. That means cloud backup — not just an external drive in your office drawer.

Cloud Backup: Your First Line of Defense

A cloud backup runs automatically every night (or in real time) and stores your data in geographically separate data centers — often hundreds of miles away. When your building has four feet of water in it, your data is sitting dry in an Amazon or Microsoft data center somewhere else. When the storm passes, you log in from anywhere and your data is there.

Good cloud backup options for small businesses in the Baton Rouge area:

• Backblaze Business Backup — affordable, reliable, automatic, runs silently in the background
• Microsoft 365 with OneDrive — if you're already in the Microsoft ecosystem, your files can sync automatically to the cloud
• Google Workspace — same concept for Google users
• Acronis Cyber Protect — a more robust option for businesses with servers and more complex setups

Cloud backup is not expensive. For most small businesses it runs $10–$30 per month. The cost of losing your data — customer records, invoices, QuickBooks, contracts — is measured in thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is not a conversation about whether you can afford cloud backup. You can't afford not to have it.

On-Site Backup — Do It Right

Cloud backup is your primary defense, but a local backup gives you faster restore times. If you use an external drive or NAS for local backup, store it elevated and away from the exterior walls. After the 2016 flood, we heard from business owners whose backups were on a shelf near the floor. Everything went under. A backup stored on a high interior shelf — even 5 feet up — would have survived.

Even better: keep a second drive at your home or a family member's home, and swap it monthly. That's your off-site local backup.

Equipment Protection Before the Storm

When a hurricane watch is issued and you have 24–48 hours of warning, here's what to do with your equipment:

Elevate Everything You Can't Take

Computers, servers, and network equipment should be moved off the floor and onto tables, upper shelves, or high countertops before a storm. In the 2016 flood, businesses that had equipment on 6-foot steel shelving lost nothing. Businesses with equipment on 3-foot desks lost everything. A few feet of elevation can be the difference between a recoverable disaster and a total loss.

Unplug and Power Down

Shut down servers and workstations properly before a storm. Don't leave them running. Power surges during storm restoration can fry equipment that's powered on. An unpowered machine is more resistant to electrical damage. If you have a UPS (uninterruptible power supply), make sure it's fully charged and test it before storm season starts.

Photograph Your Equipment

Before every storm season, take photos of your equipment — serial numbers, model numbers, physical condition. If you have to file an insurance claim, you'll be glad you did. Only about 21% of Louisiana businesses had flood insurance before the 2016 flood. If you don't have it — get it now, before the season starts, because flood insurance typically has a 30-day waiting period before it takes effect.

Waterproof Bags for Critical Drives

If you have an external drive that contains critical data and you can't take it with you, seal it in a large ziplock bag and place it as high as possible inside the building. It's not a foolproof solution, but a drive that stays dry inside a sealed bag inside a flooding building has a much better chance than one sitting on a shelf uncovered.

Business Continuity: How to Keep Operating When the Power Is Out

The 2016 flood didn't just damage equipment. It shut down businesses for days and weeks. For many small businesses, a week of zero revenue combined with a full restoration bill is enough to close permanently. Here's how to prepare for operational continuity:

Document Your Critical Systems

Write down the answers to these questions before storm season:

• What software do we absolutely need to operate?
• What are our login credentials for cloud services, banking, payroll?
• Who are our critical vendors and what are their emergency contacts?
• Can our staff work from home if the office is inaccessible?
• Do we have a backup location where we could temporarily operate?

Store this document somewhere your team can access it even if your office is under four feet of water. A printed copy stored off-site, or a shared Google Doc accessible from any phone — both work.

Mobile Hotspots and Cellular Backup

Wired internet is the first thing to go down in a storm. Having a cellular-based mobile hotspot as a backup means your team can keep working — from a hotel, a family member's home, or a generator-powered office — without depending on a fiber line that's been cut. For most small businesses, a $40/month mobile data plan as a backup is worth every penny during storm season.

Generator Readiness

If your business depends on being physically operational (a restaurant, a retail store, a medical practice), a generator is not optional — it's infrastructure. Make sure your generator is load-tested before season. Make sure you have enough fuel stored safely. Make sure someone knows how to start and transfer the load. We've seen businesses with generators fail because no one practiced using them before they needed them.

Notify Your Customers

Have a plan for communicating with customers if you have to close suddenly. Email list, Facebook page, Google Business Profile — all of these can be updated from a phone. Let people know you're closed, when you expect to reopen, and how to reach you. Customers who know what's happening are customers who come back. Customers who show up to a dark building and never hear anything — often don't.

After the Flood: Data Recovery From Water-Damaged Drives

If you've already been through a flood and your drives went underwater — don't give up on your data yet. Here's what to know:

Do NOT Power On a Wet Drive

This is the single most important thing to know. If a hard drive has been submerged in flood water, do not attempt to power it on. Powering on a wet drive almost always destroys it permanently. Water and contaminants inside a spinning hard drive will scratch and destroy the magnetic platters — the part that actually holds your data — in seconds. Leave it unpowered. Keep it in a sealed plastic bag to prevent further drying and oxidation. Bring it to us as soon as possible.

What We Can Recover

Hard drives that have been flooded but never powered on after the flood can often be recovered. We've successfully retrieved data from drives that were underwater for days. SSDs (solid-state drives) are more resistant to water damage than spinning hard drives — but they're not immune. The sooner you act, and the less you do to the drive in the meantime, the better your chances.

What Is Likely Gone for Good

A drive that was powered on while wet, or that has been allowed to dry out completely over weeks or months, has a much lower recovery probability. Drives that were in a running computer when it was flooded — meaning they were spinning and in operation as water rose — are often unrecoverable. This is exactly why we tell every business owner: the best data recovery strategy is never needing data recovery at all.

The Pre-Storm IT Checklist for Louisiana Businesses

We've Been Through It. We Can Help.

Geeks Anywhere has been serving the Baton Rouge and Denham Springs area for over 20 years. We survived Katrina. We survived the 2016 flood with four feet of water in our own shop. We've helped hundreds of local businesses and homeowners recover data, rebuild their computer setups, and prepare for what's next.

We're not a big-box store. We're not a call center in another state. We're your neighbors — the same people who drove through the aftermath of the 2016 flood to help customers recover what they could. When the next storm comes through, we'll be here again.

If you want help setting up cloud backup, surge protection, a business continuity plan, or you want us to assess your current setup before hurricane season — call us at 225-235-0846. We'll come to you.

Don't wait until a storm is 24 hours out. By then it's too late to get flood insurance, too late to run cable, and too late to fix whatever you've been meaning to fix. The time to prepare is right now — before the sky turns dark.

We've seen what the water does when it comes in. You don't want to find out the hard way.

— Ty Bettison, Geeks Anywhere, Denham Springs & Baton Rouge, Louisiana