During a thrashing thunderstorm in early June, my house was struck by lightning! It was loud and scary. Fortunately, no one was hurt; no fires were started and power was never lost. Once the startle factor wore off, I went about my usual evening routine but began to soon find out the extent of the lightning strike… Damage done. I discovered my internet/cable/phone were out. Then in my home office, I discovered my router, modem and brand new printer I’d just purchased in April were fried too! Fortunately at the time, my laptop computer was not plugged in because I had been using it offsite and hadn’t yet reconnected it (phew!). I called my communications company and was informed the outage was just at my residence (sigh) and scheduled a technician to come out the next day. Mother Nature is random so better to be prepared! During unusual or extreme circumstances a small business owner may need to shift and adjust from the typical methods of operations. The internet is a lifeline for my Virtual Assistant (VA) business as I’m sure it is for your business. I was able to continue to work by using my internet connection through a jetpack so business did not skip a beat. Customer service. I have to give a hat-tip to the communications company technician. Tom was swift, skilled and had electronics operational in no time. His efficiency reinforced the fact, that’s why we call on experts to get the job done. ICE. “In Case of Emergency.” Do you have a backup plan in case of an emergency? Could your business handle even the slightest disruption? Don’t wait for an emergency to be prepared. Great tools and resources can be found online at Ready.Gov and SBA.Gov to help small business owners plan for and protect your business. #BePrepared All in all, the damage from the lightning strike could’ve been much worse. It’s back to business as usual here. I supposed you could count as a side benefit, I also got lots of functional exercise by having to hoist my garage door up and down for a few days while waiting for a part to arrive because the lightning strike fried the garage door opener motor too!