Office Depot Offers Last-Minute Tips for Small Businesses to Prepare for Hurricane Earl

BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As Hurricane Earl, a category 3 storm, is predicted to make landfall, Office Depot (NYSE:ODP), a leading global provider of office products and services, is urging small businesses along the mid-Atlantic coastline to get prepared.

“If you are a small business owner, you can’t afford not to be prepared”

Hurricane Earl is predicted to pass within 50 miles of the Outer Banks of North Carolina early Friday morning, according to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It is the second major hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic season, which experts are predicting to be average, prompting the urgency for timely and thorough preparation of both home and business.

While the most important step in hurricane preparation is to ensure the safety of family and friends, business owners also need to protect their organization and property in order to bring operations up-to-speed as quickly as possible after the storm. Not only is valuable data and property at risk, but also the ability to financially support employees who might not have the ability to endure a lapse in pay due to the storm.

“Heed the advance storm warnings and protect your most important assets: your people and your data,” said Bill Gavin, Director of Global Business Continuity for Office Depot. “There are simple and affordable steps you can take to protect your business now.”

Before a storm, Gavin advises small businesses to take the following steps:

Protect Your People

• Build solid contact lists. Include names and phone numbers of employees, vendors and emergency agencies. Have contact lists stored both inside and outside the office and perhaps kept in the possession of two or more trusted managers or staff members.
• Establish emergency communications procedures.
• Organize supplies. Ensure you have sufficient water, food, and janitorial products, and that your company has access to cash, generators, and Energizer® batteries. Also consider the Eveready® Flashlight.
• Provide employee assistance. Train at least one staff member in CPR and first aid and, if possible, prepare family disaster kits and alternative family housing.

Protect Your Data

• Some companies looking to cut costs have increased the use of computer automation, making them more vulnerable to outages. Copy electronic data to a USB memory stick, CD-ROM or DVD-R using your PC’s optical drive to help the company be capable of rebounding faster.

According to The Hartford Financial Services Group, more than 40 percent of businesses that experience a disaster and have no emergency plan never reopen, and of those that do reopen, only 29 percent are still operating two years later.¹

“If you are a small business owner, you can’t afford not to be prepared,” Gavin said. For more information, and to download Office Depot’s free brochure titled Expecting the Unexpected: Disaster Preparedness Strategies for Small Business, visit www.officedepot.com/getprepared.

About Office Depot

Every day, Office Depot is Taking Care of Business for millions of customers around the globe. For the local corner store as well as Fortune 500 companies, Office Depot provides products and services to its customers through 1,598 worldwide retail stores, a dedicated sales force, top-rated catalogs and a $4.2 billion e-commerce operation. Office Depot has annual sales of approximately $12.1 billion, and employs about 41,000 associates around the world. The Company provides more office products and services to more customers in more countries than any other company, and currently sells to customers directly or through affiliates in 53 countries.

Office Depot’s common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ODP and is included in the S&P 500 Index. General press information can be found at: http://mediarelations.officedepot.com. Media looking to access digital assets and news, please visit http://socialpressofficedepot.com/. For more information about Office Depot’s overall environmental initiatives, visit www.officedepot.com/environment.

¹ The Hartford’s Guide to Emergency Preparedness Planning, created by The Hartford Financial Services Group and now published by J.J. Keller & Associates