WichitaFallsComplete.com
Do you have your emergency generator ready? Is that a machine that generates emergencies? Maybe, but in this case I'm talking about a machine that generates electricity to power your household in the event of the loss of commercial power.
This is doubly important if you are operating a home business. I don't know about you, but everything business-related comes to a halt when there's no power. Wichita Falls is on the southern end of "tornado alley", and while we don't get tornadoes on a regular basis, we do get a lot of the super thunderstorms that spawn them. Every few years we lose power for hours at a time. So far, in recent years no outages lasting longer than 6 hours have occurred in my part of town, but that's because I've been lucky. But for that unlucky day that could be just around the corner, I have a generator standing by.
Of course your first concern is the actual running of the home - lighting, refrigerator, heating or air, and other essential items. After that, you can worry about how a loss of electrical power will affect your home business.
Now those of you who use laptops may be able to run on battery power for awhile and hopefully the commercial power will be back on before the battery gives out. But what if it doesn't? Will you be able to access the Internet to check e-mail and otherwise conduct business? For me, it's mostly writing, writing and more writing. More than a few hours without power and I'm at a standstill. I can still brainstorm and put my ideas down on paper, but the actual computer work requires power.
A laptop with wireless capability would be a plus if there are "hot spots" in town that still have power. You know them, Starbucks, Burger King, Atlanta Bread Company, Hastings, Books-A-Million and so on. Of course you can expect to find that everybody has the same idea so conditions may be crowded.
Those of you who have your own "information" websites may not be able to update the site during a loss of power. Those of you who have static "storefront" websites may not be so affected unless you were planning to upload new products. And those of you, heaven forbid, who have those "turnkey" clone websites that sell something really won't be affected at all.
For those of you who do a lot of mailing to your in-house list, you might think about having a good supply of address labels printed for a day or two ahead just in case the weather decides there'll be no printing for a few days.
Of course, there are more issues to worry about than the few I have mentioned. I'll leave it up to you to think of what they are. Everybody's situation will be different.
Bottom line: invest in a generator. Your family and your home business will thank you.
Maynard