The Ultimate Disaster Recovery Plan Checklist: A Survivalist’s Approach to Business and Personal Preparedness

Disasters can strike at any moment. These threaten not only business operations, but  personal data security, financial stability, and entire infrastructures. For MIRA Safety customers, preparedness permeates every part of life, including business strategies. A well-crafted Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) ensures individual and business survival in the face of crises, whether they stem from cyber warfare, grid failures, economic collapse, or engineered disasters.

This guide will help business owners, survivalists, and critical infrastructure professionals build a disaster-proof strategy to safeguard their assets and ensure resilience against even the most catastrophic scenarios.

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What is a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) and Why is it Crucial?

Many emergency preparation resources focus on the immediate aftermath of a crisis - and that is crucial. A DRP focuses on the disaster recovery process timeline, getting your business from the initial crisis to resumption of normal operations. 

Defining a Disaster Recovery Plan

A DRP is a predetermined, written set of instructions that lays out a plan for maintaining critical business functions in the event of a disaster scenario. 

Key Components of an Effective DRP

A well-written DR plan should include several components dealing with each stage of a major disruptive event. 

• Emergency Response Protocols – What happens when the grid goes down or a cyberattack cripples operations? The plan must consider what steps will be taken in the immediate aftermath of an emergency to limit damage to the company's capacity. 

• Data Backup Strategies – The recovery procedure must include methods to prevent data loss in the event that the main data center is damaged or unavailable. These can include cloud-based backups, alternate site backups, and on-site backups. 

• Communication Frameworks – Some companies also implement plans for alternate communication methods, including HAM radios, encrypted messaging apps, and satellite phones.

• Resource Allocation Plans – If disaster strikes, it's necessary to prioritize key resources. This means determining what staff will go where and receive quick access to the resources they need to address the problem. 

Difference Between DRPs and Business Continuity Plans

A DRP focuses on IT systems and infrastructure, while a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) ensures total organizational survival—both are necessary for true preparedness.

Information systems are the bedrock of most modern systems - everything from banking to national security. A DRP essentially creates a backup plan for all the stored data in the event that the primary data storage facility is compromised. It also includes a data recovery plan. 

To ensure business continuity and disaster recovery, a BCP complements a DRP by ensuring that the company can continue (or quickly resume) business operations after a disaster. 

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What Types of Disasters Should Your DRP Address?

Your disaster recovery strategy will change slightly depending on what kind of disaster occurs. Your risk assessment should take into account the most likely scenarios for your region and type of business, but also not neglect unusual events. 

Natural Disasters vs. Man-Made Incidents

Your business recovery plan should outline differing responses to natural disasters and man-made incidents.

Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires can all cause data loss after a disaster. 

In 2024, Hurricane Helene caused extensive damage in North Carolina, leading to loss of data from affected centers. 

Similarly, the January 2025 California Wildfires caused interruptions to some servers across Southern California, leading some tech forums to discuss different disaster scenarios and how their data could be compromised. 

READ NOW: How to Survive a Wildfire (2025 Update) 

Man-made threats can be caused either intentionally or unintentionally. Infrastructure degradation can lead to power grid failures - an example of an unintentional disaster event. Intentional damage - terrorism, sabotage, etc. - must also be considered as part of the disaster recovery planning. 

Cyber Attacks and Data Breaches

Cyber crime is rampant. As of 2022, there were an estimated 5.4 billion malware attacks worldwide - 40% of those successfully compromising private data. 

Ransomware is another growing threat- one cybersecurity firm reports that targeted companies could not access their data for an average of 24 days after a ransomware attack. That length of time could permanently cripple a business. 

An ongoing national security concern: nation-state attacks targeting critical infrastructure.

This kind of human-made disaster is intentional, malicious, and designed to cause widespread panic in a population. By targeting key infrastructure systems, nefarious actors can also delay the response and recovery capability of first responders. 

Your data recovery management plan focuses on what to do when these kinds of attacks occur - not if. 

Best practices recommend that your disaster recovery plan should include automating the backups, making multiple copies, and increasing the frequencies of backups. 

Unfortunately, the only truly unhackable backup is a physical, offline copy. Some businesses have a plan in place that secures their data in an actual vault on hard drives. These are stored at a separate site as part of the Data Center DRP. 

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Technology Failures and System Outages

The internet systems that manage bank transactions are also vulnerable to these kinds of attacks. In fact, around 300 small banks in India were taken offline last year due to cyberattacks. 

Offline digital payment systems are an emerging technology. Ideally, these systems will be able to provide continuity for business needs and payments if internet-based payment systems go offline. The Federal Reserve warns that these are still in their early stages, so a DR plan should define offsite data storage to ensure that your business isn't wiped out by a cyber attack. 

How to Create a Comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plan

Now that you know how a plan helps protect your business from the growing threat of cyber crime, we'll cover the necessary steps for designing one. 

Conducting a Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

This step identifies a few key items:

• Mission-critical systems

• Worst-case scenarios

• Tolerable length of downtime 

For example, what are the core systems that need to be operable for your business to function? Those will be the restoration priorities. Will your business be impacted by even a few minutes of lost service? 

The BIA helps you determine next steps. 

Establishing Recovery Time & Point Objectives (RTO & RPO)

Two key terms your disaster recovery team will determine for your business are the recovery time objective and the recovery point objective. 

The RTO is the maximum tolerable length of time that your organization should take to restore service. 

The RPO is the acceptable amount of data loss that your business can tolerate. For example, if you perform backups every 48 hours and you have an outage considered a disaster, then you can expect to lose any data from the past 48 hours. 

Developing Recovery Strategies and Procedures

A technology disaster recovery plan includes more than just data backups - although those are crucial. 

Rapid recovery after an attack or natural disaster includes planning for different contingencies. 

Businesses need to have clear, established grid-down protocols that detail how they will communicate, travel, and secure valuable equipment. 

In extreme cases, a business may even need a bug-out protocol. Just as an individual can have this type of plan in place when home becomes unsafe, businesses can have a second (and even third) safe location identified to relocate operations. 

Essential Elements of a Disaster Recovery Plan Template

Many businesses now contract out a disaster recovery plan through security companies. We've outlined a brief template below to make sure you're hitting the key elements.

Defining Roles and Responsibilities

Have a plan to ensure each person knows their role. 

For a business, determine who is in charge of triggering disaster recovery procedures, including leading evacuations to safe locations if needed. 

In a family or household, assign a "point person" to coordinate efforts, but be sure each capable family member can take different roles as needed by the emergency. 

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Outlining Communication Protocols

A communication plan is one of the most useful items a household or business can implement before power outages, grid blackouts, or natural disasters. Have a plan to stay in touch if normal online methods are unavailable. 

It is crucial that your plan should specify a secure communications and collaboration plan, often referred to as Unified Communications or UC. 

A UC plan regularly handles data encryption to ensure that all information entering and leaving the business remains secure. 

Documenting Critical Business Processes and Systems

One of your recovery objectives should include getting the maintenance of at least a semblance of normal business operations through the crisis without access to regular systems.

Documentation is a key component of this. 

#1 - Ensure your business has offline policy and procedure manuals for continuity. For example - instructions for your backup and disaster recovery should be kept as a paper copy as well as a local, offline source. 

#2 - Keep a physical incident response plan printed and accessible for all personnel. A cyberattack is bad enough and can keep your data inaccessible. But don't forget that an Electromagnetic Pulse Attack (EMP) can wipe out all electricity - meaning paper would be your only source of instructions. 

READ NOW: 8 Essential Steps to Survive and Thrive after an EMP Attack 

Implementing Effective Backup and Recovery Strategies

Your backup system can make or break your business in the wake of a cyberattack or natural disaster.

Choosing the Right Backup Methods

Most experts recommend three different backup methods. You likely want an on-site and off-site backup. The off-site backup of your data will be more secure, while the on-site backup will be more accessible. The on-site backup can still be kept secure from malware attacks through air-gapped backups, which physically isolate the backup servers from the main computers. This means that hackers are less likely to infect both systems at once. 

Establishing Disaster Recovery Sites and Infrastructure

Some businesses handle extremely sensitive information, and additional types of disaster recovery plans may be required.

A secondary operational site can be crucial for maintaining continuity for government operations. 

Some businesses are exploring self-sufficient sites, where a local generator can help them maintain operations during a grid blackout. 

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Understanding Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)

Effective disaster recovery will likely grow more complex as generative AI is harnessed for cybercrime. 

This has given rise to Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS). The services advise companies regarding recovery plans and in some cases completely manage the Business Continuity and Disaster Continuity plan - or BCDR plan vs designing one from scratch. 

Benefits of Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery Solutions

If quick restoration of service is the main priority for your business, then a plan based in the cloud might be a good solution. This has the benefit of quick restoration times, and often automated backups - but can also be a liability if the cloud-based system is restricted by local governments or is itself attacked.

On-Premises vs. Cloud DRaaS Options

Some businesses are increasingly concerned with the consolidation of tech solutions into a few mega-companies.

Evaluating self-hosted vs. third-party recovery options ultimately relies on a business's preference for hands-on solutions or managed options. 

How to Test and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan

A robust disaster recovery plan is only useful if it is well implemented. Frequent testing and adjustment is crucial to any thorough crisis response plan.

Designing and Conducting DRP Tests

Just as individuals and households conduct fire drills, data centers, IT companies, banks, and any other companies with sensitive data should conduct regular cyberattack simulations to ensure a smooth response during an actual disaster.

Companies regularly run red team drills designed to simulate an adversarial attack. This should as closely mimic real-world conditions. Ideally, this will reveal any weaknesses in the plan and give planners a chance to make changes. 

Updating and Refining Your DRP

After a red team drill, the DRP should be updated to address any learned weaknesses.

Furthermore, security professionals can study examples of financial collapses in other countries to identify limitations in their own plans and identify potential strategies that malicious actors might use. 

Ensuring Long-Term Preparedness

A DRP is not a set-it-and-forget-it solution. Even with solutions managed by third-party services, plans need to be updated regularly to ensure that they are addressing new threats as they emerge.

Consider off-grid training for key personnel. This ensures that your mission-critical staff understands how to operate under threat and - in the worst case - can relocate essential functions to a second site. 

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Bonus Section: The Preparedness Mindset—How MIRA Safety Customers Approach Disaster Recovery

People trained in a preparedness mindset think about redundancies and alternatives. This perspective can be incredibly valuable for any professional working with sensitive data.

Expecting all systems to work perfectly, 100% of the time, is unrealistic. Prepared mindsets teach you to anticipate problems and provide solutions before the disaster strikes. 

Beyond Business: Why Every Household Needs a DRP

Most people in developed countries rely on the power grid, utilities, and the internet for basic everyday functioning. We expect these systems to work smoothly, and most people never think about what might happen if it all disappeared. 

Personal preparedness plans go beyond what may be in place for your place of work. Consider these components to your personal DRP:

• Off-grid power solutions, like solar power, generators, or thermal batteries

• Paper copies of all essential records 

• Alternative currency options for governmental collapses 

The Intersection of Business and Personal Preparedness

Continuity planning can be seen as a way of thinking about the future. The goal is not to prevent all threats - though of course that's ideal - but rather, to have clear and documented processes for maintaining key functions in the face of disaster.

This mindset can be applied to individual preparedness as well. Consider the "key functions" of your household and how you might ensure those in a catastrophe. Food, water, and shelter are the essentials of course - but what about medical care? Or communication with distant family members? Or even how to help children continue schoolwork in the event of a major natural disaster, public health emergency, or terrorist attack? 

How to Stay Ahead of Emerging Threats

Business email compromise (BEC), malware, ransomware, and even phishing attacks continue to grow. While the cybersecurity industry continues to grow to address these threats, the situation is fluid. 

Forward-thinking professionals need to think both about the threats that already exist, and future possibilities. Cybersecurity leader CrowdStrike estimates that AI-driven cyberattacks are likely on the horizon. 

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Is the Grid-Down Scenario Closer Than We Think?

The more complex a system, the more vulnerabilities are baked in. Even a relatively simple regional electricity outage can take several hours or days of carefully coordinated work across multiple teams to resolve. 

Natural disasters can cause blackouts, while concerns grow over governments selectively freezing resources to industries out of favor. 

Conclusion: Your DRP is Your Survival Plan

A Disaster Recovery Plan isn’t just about business continuity—it’s a survival blueprint for self-sufficient individuals, entrepreneurs, and preparedness-minded professionals. Whether you’re facing a cyberattack, a natural disaster, or a systematic collapse, a proactive recovery strategy can mean the difference between resilience and failure.

By implementing this checklist, MIRA Safety customers can reinforce their preparedness strategies, ensuring both their businesses and families remain secure in an unpredictable world.