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Are Your IT Systems Ready For Hurricane Season?

Updated October 6, 2026 | By: Scott Lard
Hurricane season IT checklist for Houston businesses, IS&T Consulting Group

To prepare your IT for hurricane season in Houston, back up all business data to an off-site or cloud location and test a restore before June 1, move or raise servers above flood level, protect equipment with surge protection and battery backup, set up secure remote access so staff can work from home, and write down who does what before, during and after a storm. IS&T has supported Houston businesses with IT and disaster recovery since 1997.

Not sure your IT would ride out a direct hit? Have IS&T review your hurricane readiness.

Plan Your Hurricane Prep

Houston Hurricane IT Checklist

  1. Before June 1: confirm off-site or cloud backups cover servers and laptops, and run a test restore.
  2. Before June 1: confirm every employee can work remotely through VPN or remote desktop, and test it.
  3. Before June 1: write a contact list and storm plan: who powers down equipment, who calls the IT provider, how staff are reached.
  4. When a storm is forecast: run a fresh full backup, move or raise equipment above flood level, and connect critical systems to battery backup.
  5. Before landfall: shut down and unplug servers and network equipment that are not needed, following the plan.
  6. After the storm: check for water damage before powering anything on, then restore services in priority order with your IT provider.

Do your test restore in May, not when a storm is in the Gulf.

For Houston businesses, the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30. Throughout these months, hurricanes and tropical storms bring potentially dangerous and destructive weather to coastlines across the country. It is absolutely critical that businesses of all sizes and industries approach this time of year with a variety of risk mitigation tactics, safety protocols, and infrastructural support systems before dangerous weather becomes a threat.

In addition to ensuring the safety of their team members, property, and physical assets, business owners must ensure the security and infrastructure of their IT equipment, systems, and digital assets throughout hurricane season. They must also prepare for remote business operations in the event offices are inaccessible.  

Early preparedness, physical security measures, and partnering with a managed services provider for IT system infrastructural support are all essential to keeping people and businesses safe from the damaging effects and losses of tropical storms and hurricanes.

IT Systems Hurricane Ready

Know the Risks

The key to being as prepared as possible for hurricanes and tropical storms is to understand the threat these storms pose. Depending on location, businesses can face a variety of weather hazards throughout hurricane season, including:

  • Storm surges
  • Flash flooding
  • Excessive rainfall
  • Tornadoes
  • Extreme winds
  • Power outages

In addition to these general risks, businesses should assess the threats that may be unique to their property or employees, such as an inability to get employees home safely or being located in a flood zone. Assess evacuation protocols, enact company-wide emergency policies, and act early in the event of a hurricane warning.

IT System Physical Protection

The first step in securing IT infrastructure in the event of a hurricane is to physically protect IT equipment such as servers, desktops, and other devices. These steps can include:

  • Relocate devices off-site to safe locations where possible
  • If relocation is not an option, elevate devices higher than potential flood levels
  • Anchor racks and IT hardware to protect against high winds
  • Board up windows with plywood
  • Utilize surge protectors
  • Manually power off systems and disable restart features to prevent electric shorts in the event of water damage

In addition to physically protecting IT equipment, businesses should also partner with a reputable, experienced managed IT services provider who can ensure their data and IT infrastructure is supported and protected throughout hurricane season. 

Backup & Disaster Recovery Preparedness

In the event of a hurricane or major tropical storm, general backups are not enough. Businesses need the peace of mind of tested and verified backups which encompass all company data, including network servers and all employee desktops. The only way to ensure the safety and security of business data is to have a full disaster recovery plan in place, complete with regular backups, off-site data storage, and restore procedures.

A BDR, or backup/disaster recovery system is the ideal choice, as it does more than simply create a backup of a business’s data – it acts a complete, fail-safe IT system protection solution in the event of a major disaster like a hurricane. A reliable BDR solution incrementally backs up company data and server information, encrypts it, and stores it at multiple secure, off-site data centers complete with ironclad emergency measures in place to protect data. In the event of a server malfunction, a BDR solution will virtually maintain the role of a business’s server while continuing its incremental backups to ensure things are up and running and files are accessible even while server repairs are in progress.

Not only does a BDR solution allow for files and business data to be accessible at all times, it also ensures quick restoration in the event of a disaster. The aftermath of a hurricane can be devastating, but with a BDR solution in place, businesses can get their IT systems up and running quickly and easily.

A backup stored in the same building as your server will flood with your server. Off-site copies are what make a hurricane survivable.

Remote IT Helpdesk & Support

Beyond data backup and recovery plans, businesses also must address how they will work, access their network systems, and communicate with their employees in the event of a natural disaster. Hurricanes and tropical storms can cause flash flooding and damage to roadways, which makes having a remote operations contingency plan a must for any business. A remote IT helpdesk and support team can create a remote working plan for workers and provide much-needed IT support to ensure systems are up and running. This can include setting up remote desktops or VPNs for working from home and methods for accessing critical network systems.

The benefits of having IT support and helpdesk services during an emergency weather situation also apply to the recovery period following a tropical storm or hurricane. In the aftermath of a hurricane, businesses will need assistance getting their regular day-to-day systems up and running. IT professionals with experience in navigating these situations can help streamline the process and ensure teams are back to normal as swiftly as possible.

For planning frameworks, see the NIST SP 800-34 Contingency Planning Guide and CISA’s Cyber Essentials. IS&T supports Houston businesses with backup and disaster recovery, secure remote access setup and a hardened colocation data center option for servers.

Want your backups, servers and remote access tested before the next storm? IS&T can walk through your hurricane plan with you.

Plan Your Hurricane Prep

Frequently Asked Questions

Before June 1, when the Atlantic hurricane season starts. Test your backups and remote access in spring, because once a storm is forecast there is rarely time to fix problems, and IT providers are at their busiest.

At least one copy should be off-site, in a cloud service or a hardened data center outside the flood zone. Backups kept only in the office are at risk from the same flooding and power loss as your servers.

Yes, for on-site servers that are not protected by a hardened facility. Run a final backup, shut them down properly and unplug them to avoid damage from power surges and water. Systems hosted in a data center or the cloud can usually stay running.

Set up and test secure remote access before the season starts: a VPN or remote desktop, cloud email and files, and phones that forward to mobile devices. Staff should know how to connect from home before they need to.

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