How to Protect Your Storage Facility Against Storms

Storms are one of the most damaging acts of nature. Alongside floods and earthquakes, they can cause massive damage in a matter of minutes. Some of them even caused deaths, with the deadliest one being the Great Galveston Hurricane in 1900. So, with all this in mind, how can you best protect your storage facility from a storm?

Take The Necessary Steps To Protect Your Self Storage Facility From Storms

The following guide will outline how to protect your storage facility from storms.

Dealing With Insurance

Ideally, you should sit down with your lawyer and go over various scenarios and how covered you are. You don’t want to go through a massive storm only to find out that you don’t have the necessary coverage. There are ways to prepare for storms provided you have enough time and resources.

Also, you want to go over the contracts that you signed with your tenants. A single badly written clause can end up costing you a lot of money. So, try to make your storage facility legally bulletproof before you go about dealing with storms.

Inspecting Your Facility

After that, you should go about inspecting your facility. If there are any trees or branches nearby that can fall on your facilities, consider getting rid of them. Furthermore, you need to check if there is currently any damage to your facility, especially if you are maintaining it remotely. Keep in mind that small damage to the structure can present a weak point causing a chain reaction that will destroy your entire facility. So, you need to ensure that your facilities are in tip-top structural condition before the storm comes. Make sure that the roof of your seld storage facility is in good condition, as it usually gets damaged during a storm.

Dealing With Utilities

No matter how much you protect storage facilities against storms, the power supply and water will go out. Therefore, if you have any climate-controlled storage units, you might want to find backup power generators. If you already have them in place, make sure that they are working properly.

Documentation Backup

You never know how severe or damaging the next storm will be. Therefore, if you want to protect your business properly, you need to back up your important information regularly. If you have paper documents, make sure that they are stored safely to prevent damage. You should save digital information on a cloud server so that even if your computers get destroyed, you will still have your vital info saved. Do what you can to ensure that a damaging storm will only harm your facilities, and not put you out of business. Upload your important files to trusted cloud servers every two months.

Dealing With The Incoming Storm

The first four steps should be taken months in advance. Now let’s say that the news forecasts a storm in the upcoming two weeks. If you’ve done all that we’ve outlined, you are in pretty good shape. But, there are still a couple of steps that you need to take.

Inform Your Storage Tenants

Notify your tenants about your working hours and advise them on how to protect their most valuable items as best as they can. Help them figure out how to relocate their items from storage units. They should get any valuable items out of the storage unit, and keep them until the storm passes. If they plan on keeping them inside storage units, they should at least wrap them in plastic and make sure that they are off the ground. Storing items in plastic bins will make them much safer from water damage.

Preparing Your Self Storage Facility For The Incoming Storm

-Go through your facilities one more time and make sure that they are as safe and secure as possible. This includes:

-Clean out the gutters and bringing down anything that can easily get blown away. Things like signs, banners, flags, plants, garbage cans, etc.

-Check your drainage system.

-Make sure to check that alarms and fire extinguishers are working properly.

-Cover your electronics and computers with a plastic cover to prevent water drops.

-Place a protective cover over glass windows to reduce the chance of them breaking.

-Close down your facility and make sure that everything is locked and protected.

-Take photos of your facilities before the storm. They might come in handy when dealing with insurance.

-Make sure to manually lock up your storage facilities. That way, even once the power goes out, your storage units will remain safe.

What To Do For Your Storage Facility After A Storm

Depending on how damaging the storm was, there might be a plethora of things you will need to deal with. But, if you’ve taken the necessary steps to protect storage facilities against storms, you should be able to go through an average one without much trouble.

Don’t neglect the safety of your facilities, especially after the storm has blown over. Once it has passed, you should first take photos of the damage so that you can compare them with those you took before the storm. You should also update your tenants about what they should do and about the damages, or lack thereof, to your facilities.

Succeed with Self Storage Solutions from 6Storage 

With a little preparation, you can take big steps to protect your self storage facility from storm damage. Follow this guide and get your facility ready to handle anything.

Owning and operating self storage facilities requires a strong foundation in order to succeed. Accelerate achievements with smart self storage solutions. 

From Mac-supported, cloud-based self storage management software to a reliable remote gate access system, 6Storage offers user-friendly support to the self storage industry. In addition, 6Storage offers website services and an advanced storage calculator. We back up all of our services with 24/7 live chat support. 

If you’re looking for affordable self storage solutions designed by industry experts offered at competitive prices, look no further than 6Storage! Contact us to level up your storage business and experience our white-glove service.