Self Storage sites in some areas of Brisbane southside were hit hard with Melco, Storage King and Kennards all affected. Storage King Rocklea was flooded along with Melco at Oxley. We hope they can recover from this terrible disaster as fast as possible.

Only a handful of sites were hit with floodwaters that caused flooding but other sites were affected by power loss and road closures. One group has only just got back into Head Office in the last few days, having moved out to temporary premises.

Our own office remained dry, but on the Tuesday, Strathpine was asked to self evacuate as the torrential rain was closing in on the many streams around us. The Matilda Service station only 300 metres from our office was flooded.

As we operate in the "cloud", our systems were not affected. We relocated to home and kept working. Some of our customers who use SiteLink could not do much business as power was disconnected. A simple call made to another branch with power and they could log in to get vital customer details. No power - no computers! Some operated off laptops with batteries. No loss of data.

A suggestion from a customer lead us to compile a list of dry and secure Self Storage sites around flood affected areas. We had great response from sites giving their details so that storers could easily find them and we posted the list on our web site as that was the fastest way for us to publish and update. We updated it several times a day and let the authorities know. We updated Facebook and Twitter with the list - the effect being dramatic. Within 1 hour we had over 100 view the page!

Our tweets got reposted by others and this in turn made the list go viral - hundreds then viewed the list. One victim saw the list and contacted us directly from the USA. We helped them rent 3 spaces and have helped them sort out how to get their wine collection back in shape.

At a recent meeting of fellow IT companies in Brisbane we all discussed the preparedness of businesses for an impending disaster and its surprising how many did not have any plans for the flood, especially bigger businesses. Many relied on the fact that "We will be OK -  the Wivenhoe Dam will save us".

It didn't. So the key is to have a plan.