Hurricane Harvey, The Cloud and the Maytag Repair Man

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I have been through several hurricanes and natural disasters. I have seen weeks without access to our office and I have even helped haul servers down flights of stairs so that we could get offices set up and operational.

It has been a tough two weeks here in Houston. Hurricane Harvey dumped over 4 feet of water on our city, houses and roads were covered and we had no way to get to the office. I worried about my family, my team, my friends and even my home. 

There was one thing that I did not worry about at all. I never lost a minute’s sleep over our data or how soon our office could be up and running. In fact, there were moments that I was logged in working during the middle of the hurricane. This is the benefit of cloud computing. We have no redundant servers. No backups. In fact, we have no servers in our office. Nothing to haul down stairs or set up in a remote location. No, we aren’t a small firm. Over 100 people potentially affected by Harvey.

Today I had our Chief Administrative Officer, Emily Mazey and our Employee Experience Officer, Amanda Shook, look into missed time for the week and encourage our team to take advantage of the federal benefits for disaster unemployment. They did. They came back to me and said “Wes, people worked all week. They weren’t unemployed, there are hours charged to clients, the work never stopped”. Wow. We got something right. We were in the cloud. Our team was able to carry on in the midst of the worst hurricane in decades and a flood that was deemed to be a “500 year flood”. 

CCH Axcess has our practice management, workflow, tax program and document management system in the cloud and as long as we had internet access, we had the ability to carry on as usual. Microsoft 365, in the cloud, gave us uninterrupted email, chat and calendar services. 

Our Brand Experience Officer Catherine Seitz and Partner Stan Raines set up a text messaging system for us to communicate and assist others. The communication lines were open. 

CCH Engagement and Quickbooks were both hosted in military grade data centers that never went down. 

It is a textbook case study for cloud based computing. If you aren’t going to change because it is just the smartest and most efficient way to do business, then consider it for this #1 reason. When a natural disaster strikes, you will be prepared. Your disaster recovery plans will look like ours, a laptop. You are covered.

There was one guy who wasn't stressing over disaster recovery. Our internal IT guy, Cory Dial. Can you picture the Maytag repair man? That’s Cory. Cory is important to our organization, but he can focus on service and strategy.

Welcome to the cloud. Why aren't you here yet?

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Wesley Middleton author of Violent Leadership: Be a Force for Change. Disrupt. Innovate. Energize. (ForbesBooks), co-founder and managing partner of Middleton Raines + Zapata LLP (MRZ), a tax and accounting services firm, and is also an executive team member for MRZ Financial and SKY Valuation. With over 25 years of tax compliance and consulting experience, he has demonstrated a knack for helping business owners transform their companies into growth and strategy-oriented organizations that excel in operations, marketing, technology, customer service, and workforce engagement, as well as tax and accounting services. Middleton is a certified public accountant and member of the AICPA, Texas Society of CPAs, and the Association of Accounting Marketing.




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