How Earthquakes Impact Businesses

Injured workers, destroyed facilities, interrupted transportation infrastructure – these are the predictable outcomes businesses face after earthquakes. Insurance policies and emergency preparation plans often account for such earthquake-caused business disasters. However, as experts in document scanning services, we’ve also seen how much turmoil flood damaged books and documents can cause following an earthquake.

First, earthquakes can activate sprinkler systems and breakwater lines – both of which send water cascading onto critical business files.

Earthquakes can also break gas lines. With a single spark, leaking gas can explode into the fire, destroying irreplaceable documents and other business assets. Additionally, smoke may damage possessions that are left untouched by flames.

Moreover, seismic activity can loosen unstable soil, unleashing mudslides and flash floods. Even businesses far away from a quake’s epicenter may face these outcomes.

Fortunately, even if an earthquake does leave a business with mountains of flood-damaged books and documents, document scanning services can repair damaged papers through desiccant air drying and vacuum freeze-drying. Still, it’s less expensive to create a work-around for flood-damaged documents and books before a disaster strikes.

Next month, we’ll be reviewing mitigation steps that FEMA recommends businesses take to protect themselves against earthquakes. But for now, we’ll conclude with a smart move businesses can take to defend their assets against all kinds of disasters, including earthquakes: document scanning. By scanning important documents and storing them in digital form, businesses can avoid getting caught without access to critical information following a disaster. We recommend selecting an out-of-state data storage server so your “in-the-cloud” resources won’t be impacted by the same disasters that hit your locality.

[ Photo by: CECAR – Climate and Ecosystems Change Adaptation R, via CC License ]