There's a brush fire bearing down on your small business. You've been told you have one hour to evacuate -- which means you have one hour to come up with and execute a disaster preparation plan.

This is a scenario similar to what thousands of small business owners face each year. Luckily, that's enough time to take care of a company's most valuable assets, its employees and its data.

Disaster prep is one of those tasks that many small business owners keep planning to get to, but keep putting off. And it certainly may not seem like a priority at a company that's contending with slumping sales and cash flow during a recession.

While it's understandable that some owners don't get around to disaster planning, they're courting danger.

"This is wrath of God stuff," said John Toigo, a disaster recovery consultant based in Dunedin, Fla.

Without disaster planning, "there's no way I'd be able to recover my retirement," he said, referring to the fact that so many owners expect to some day sell their companies and live off the proceeds.

Minimal preparation -- the kind you'd have to resort to if a disaster were in fact on the way -- can be accomplished in an hour. And you can do much more if you have the luxury of an entire day.

Toigo said the first thing to be done is to put together a list of contact phone numbers, physical and e-mail addresses for everyone on the staff, and to be sure everyone has a copy. Staffers should provide several different ways that they can be reached during an emergency.

Luis Yepez, vice president of Mainstream Global, a Lawrence, Mass.-based computer reseller, said owners should also let employees know they're concerned about their staffers' welfare.

"Stress the important, that you care about their safety, their well being," he said.

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