In light of Irma’s imminent arrival in Florida today, I thought it’d be worth linking a few articles addressing technology-related disaster preparation. First, Ars Technica has an article about the utility of having a UPS attached to your networking gear. I just did that a few months ago and it’s already paid off when I was doing some electrical work on the house that required turning off the power and I was still able to WiFi instructional YouTube video. I can see it being even more useful in a hurricane. Katie Floyd made a good point on this week’s upcoming Mac Power Users that if you are expecting a lot of lightning, you can unplug the UPS from the wall and use it as a massive iPhone/iPad charger.

Speaking of Katie Floyd, she’s a lifetime Florida resident and disaster preparedness runs cold through her veins. She put up a smart post with several of the technology related steps she takes whenever Florida goes on storm watch.

If things are really going off the rails for you, think about your data first. A few years ago we had some wild fires literally across the street from my home. It all happened very fast and we had almost no time to prepare before being evacuated. With 20 minutes to get out, we grabbed all the pictures off the walls and all the hard drives with all the family data. Give some thought to how you'd deal with that sort of fire drill. If you wouldn't be able to get your most valuable data quickly, time to buy some additional hard drives or come up with some other plan.

Finally, if you're reading this from Florida, please take care and be safe.