A brutal winter storm slammed into the central U.S. this week, bringing heavy snow, freezing rain, and bone-snapping temps that put infrastructure—and business continuity—on ice. Flights were grounded, delivery routes froze solid, and power grids in a few spots got real twitchy. For most folks, this was a weather story. But for those of us in tech and business ops? It was a warning shot.

Here’s the truth no one likes to say out loud: most small businesses are one snowstorm away from disaster. I’ve seen it since the ’90s—back when server rooms were janitor closets with a window unit trying to fight Arizona heat. These days, the tech is better, but the mindset often isn’t. Redundancy is good, but resilience is better. If your business goes dark the moment FedEx can’t get through or your staff can’t VPN in because of a power outage, you’re not resilient—you’re vulnerable.

Cloud services help, sure. But cloud alone doesn’t fix poor planning. Have you thought through offsite access? Local failover options? Mobile hotspots as backup internet? Battery backups for your networking gear at home? Redundant is having two pipes to the internet. Resilient is knowing how to stay operational if both fail. If you’re still relying on your desktop tower under the front desk, I’m looking at you.

This storm reminded us that nature doesn’t care about SLAs, and uptime guarantees don’t mean a thing when your people can’t connect. Tech is a tool—but it’s the plan that keeps a business running. So, take a hard look at your business continuity strategy this week. Because the cold is coming for all of us eventually—and it’s not just the pipes that crack when it does, my friend.