Our sincerest thoughts go out to those that have been stuck in the storm or have family or friends that were affected by the Atlanta Winter Storm of 2014. On Tuesday January 28th at approximately 2:00pm Atlanta experienced one of the largest traffic jams the city has ever had, as a winter storm took the city by surprise. It took hours to travel only a couple of miles and vehicles were getting stuck in the snow ice. By nightfall the roads transformed into car graveyards and hundreds of people were left stranded in their vehicles. People were abandoning their cars and walking miles to get home and some people stayed in hotels or other places offering shelter for the night. The city only had 2 inches of snow, but since everyone left work or school at the same time to return to his or her home, a colossal traffic jam occurred. Aerial pictures of the Atlanta gridlock made the roads look like parking lots. There were over 940 accidents reported and over 400 flights were cancelled during the snow jam of 2014.
The InnoVergent office is located right outside of Atlanta and we have many clients in the metro Atlanta area that have unfortunately been in the midst of this inclement weather. We hope all of the families and loved ones that have been affected are safe and warm, as we hope for a rapid return to normalcy after the abundant pandemonium caused by the storm.
Although the Atlanta Winter Storm of 2014 has been a hardship for many in their business and personal lives, we are proud to say that as an organization that provides cloud computing solutions, many of our clients were able to continue business as usual. As long as our clients were able to access an Internet browser, they could continue to work from home or wherever they may be and not have to risk driving to the office in this inclement weather. Everyone has access to their data anywhere anytime on the cloud.
Many Atlanta businesses have shut down during the storm and because their data is on premise, employees are unable to access their data from home. This could add up to thousands of dollars worth of lost productivity due to not being able to access the data in the office. Businesses don’t have access to their servers, but this is not the case when you are on a cloud platform. As long as you have power and access to the Internet your business is up and running. The cloud provides companies with the security of knowing that all of your data essential to run your business is safe, backed up, and accessible to employees despite their physical location.
Though this winter storm caused widespread panic, chaos, and inconvenience for many Atlantans, we were happy to know that our Atlanta-based clients could at least have a functioning business. InnoVergent is pleased to take part in helping businesses protect their data from disaster situations by hosting data off-premise. Cloud-based solution sets have the ability to withstand any calamity, even a winter storm that essentially shutdown the city of Atlanta for a couple days.
Many Atlantans are still affected by the storm, and during the massive traffic jam on Tuesday there was a Facebook page called “SnowedOutAtlanta” created to help those in need . Facebook is a cloud-based application and the cloud was able to prevail and help out so many people in need during such a hectic time. There are still many people in Atlanta that are in need of shelter, food, help or a simple ride back to their vehicles, so feel free to check out this page to help out.
