During September, 2008 Texas played host to the most intense storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, hurricane Ike. Ike made its final landfall east of Galveston, Texas, as a Category 2 hurricane (The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale runs 1 to 5).

Hurricane Ike was the third most destructive hurricane to ever make landfall in the United States. The storm would eventually be blamed for at least 194 deaths. Ike was the third costliest U.S. hurricane of all time, behind Hurricane Andrew of 1992 and Hurricane Katrina of 2005.

What Would We Do If…
So, what do Ike and its record-breaking destructive power have to do with teeone? It just so happens that only four months earlier, Paul Davis Restoration of Greater Houston, Texas signed on as a new client. Part of what drove the business decision to move to teeone was the nagging question, “What would we do if disaster hit OUR office — how would we manage to stay in business?” Franchise owners, Joe Souza, Chad Golson, & John Simmons found the answer that best suited their needs was in teeone’s Application Service Provider solution.

“My organization is pretty tech-savvy. But, being only 50 miles from the coast, I was concerned about how our business would manage in the face of possible disaster. I hoped that moving my data and software to teeone – away from any local situation – would help keep us in business should something like hurricane Ike ever hit this area.”

When Ike came on shore, roaring overhead in Houston, all the services went “out.” Electric power and Internet service were gone, but Joe was on his laptop, working. “My laptop was battery-powered, plus we had several generators set up to provide enough power for a few of the office functions. I used my phone air card for a reliable Internet connection – logged into my teeone server and went right on working as if nothing unusual was happening.”

The Morning After…
Eventually, morning came, and with it a flood of calls from commercial and residential property owners needing our services. “We hired extra help, just to staff the incoming calls. Our mission-critical computer applications were up and running on the teeone server and my folks were able to log in to the server and document all the incoming calls and estimates as they came in. In the end, we had more work than any single company could ever have done, but we were able to do as much as we did in part because our computer systems never went off-line.”

Every Day…Peace of Mind
“I’m convinced that without teeone we would never have managed as much of the work as well or as effectively as we did. Though we work with teeone every day, it was only during the worst of times that we realized the real value of having teeone as our partner. Because our business-critical functions are in a secure location, during the devastation of Hurricane Ike, we never lost a single file, email or contract. That alone means peace of mind — no matter what the circumstances.”

Joe Souza, Chad Golson, & John Simmons
Paul Davis Restoration of Greater Houston