Restoring Surveillance After a Storm

A Message from Cloudastructure Founder Rick Bentley

After a big hurricane or severe weather event that might have knocked down or disrupted your security surveillance system, it's essential to follow a systematic approach to assess the damage and restore functionality. 

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to check and restart your surveillance system:

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Types of outages.  

The first step is to understand the problem.  Surveillance systems need a few things to work: 

• Power
• Internet Connectivity (though some can still record locally without internet)
• Cameras, and often a Recorder (though some systems have the recorder built into the cameras)
• and the cables that connect everything. 

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Checking the Power

In a major weather event it is common for power to go out.  There are two types of power backup that you may or may not have:

• Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS).  A UPS uses batteries to provide power to equipment like video surveillance systems and networking gear in the event of a power outage.  They usually run on the scale of hours.  If your power is down longer than that, and you don’t have a generator, then your system will be offline until power is restored.
• Generator. Generators can be small portable units, which often make power so “dirty” (not a clean sine wave) that electronics won’t run off of them, or whole-building generators.  Whole-building generators cost a lot more money (starting in the thousands) but generally make clean enough power for electronics.  They often come with ATS (Automatic Transfer Switches) that will turn on the generator when the power goes out and off again when utility power is restored.  This takes several seconds or more, which might cause your surveillance system to reboot and lose recordings for a period of time.  A combination of UPS and generator can ensure continuous uptime of your surveillance system.

In any case, you’re going to need power for things to work.  Make sure all your equipment that’s plugged into the wall has power.  If things still aren’t working, you can always try unplugging power and plugging power back in for all your devices.  If you decide to do this, the order can be important.  Start with your modem/router and work your way down to the other equipment at your location.

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Internet Connectivity.  

You can be offline because of your equipment or your internet provider, how to tell is to start with your modem/router.  

You will have a device at your location called a modem and/or a router.  It might have a switch with multiple Ethernet ports, and even a WiFi access point built into it, so that it can hook up multiple devices.  It could look anything like this, or even like something else.

First make sure the lights are on.  There should also be a light labeled something like “connection” or “WAN” (Wide Area Network, the Internet outside your LAN or Local Area Network).  Make sure that light is on, it will tell you if you have Internet connection to your ISP or not.  After a disaster, your equipment might all be fine but your ISP might be down for days or weeks.  When in doubt, put the model number into a search engine, find the manual for your router and see which light is supposed to be on when your ISP is providing service.  

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I. Cameras

Cameras can get blown down, hit by debris, etc.some text

1. Check each camera’s physical location. Look for signs of damage, disconnection, or misalignment caused by strong winds or flying debris. 
2. Ensure that camera mounts are secure and that cameras are pointing in the right direction.
3. If a camera is completely knocked down or detached, note its location for reinstallation.
4. Check the cable connections into the camera and make sure no water has gotten in there.

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II. Recorder

A Ring or WeMo type of camera doesn’t have a separate recorder, but larger more sophisticated systems almost always do. If you have a recorder, it might be in a back closet, mounted on a wall, in a computer rack, etc. It can store the recordings on anything from a small solid state drive up to a very large storage array of dozens of hard drives. Find it and make sure it’s on. If everything else seems to be okay, consider power cycling it to see if that brings the system back up again.

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III. Connections

Start at the beginning: 

1. The cable that brings the internet into your building.
2. Your modem/router as below.
3. Any switches or other networking equipment.
4. Your recorder, if you have one. Some cameras have the recorder built in.. (Be sure to put both SFF and RM CVR pics here too!)
5. The cable that goes to the cameras. They either go from your switch to the cameras or, in the case of old analog systems, the recorder to the cameras.
6. Follow all the cables and make sure they are connected, haven’t gotten water into the sockets, aren’t stretched or broken, etc.

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Still not online? Time to call the person who installed it for you, or if that’s you time to call the manufacturer, and get some support. You can usually get things going over the phone with no need for an expensive service call.

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Have questions? Contact us. We’re here to help.

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