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Hurricanes Wilma, Katrina And Rita Force Businesses To Rethink

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Besides Having a Plan, You Need to Implement It When Disaster

Strikes

With hurricane Wilma bearing down and the effects of hurricane

Katrina, now being cited as the single most expensive natural

disaster in the history of the United States with a direct cost

estimated at a $100 billion, still fresh in our minds,

businesses are being forced to rethink their computer system and

data recovery policies.

Of the catastrophic damage caused by hurricane Katrina, some

estimate the insured damage to be only about $12.5 billion. Over

a million non-agricultural jobs have been jeopardized by

Katrina's devastation with more than half of these in New

Orleans itself. With the business infrastructure of the New

Orleans area so gravely damaged and recovering so slowly,

businesses are beginning to rethink their ability to survive a

natural disaster of Katrina's, Rita's and now Wilma's magnitude

or the grim possibility of a terrorist attack. Was the chaos

that ensued after hurricane Katrina due to the absence of a

sound recovery disaster plan?

"The problem with the Katrina disaster was not necessarily the

lack of a plan. In fact, the US government, the State government

and the local government all had very good plans. The problem

was that they were not implemented," says David Russo, President

of Independent Network Consultants of Crofton, Maryland,

(www.INCons.com), an IT services company that assists businesses

in creating their own disaster recovery plans.

"That is why, in formulating a disaster plan, we try to make

sure that all the senior management are involved and are on

board to implement the plan if the disaster actually strikes.

This understanding has to trickle down to all the appropriate

levels of the business."

"A disaster plan, in part, is a laundry list of resources for

use in a disaster. For instance, a disaster plan for one of my

clients calls for two separate T1 lines. These telephone lines

actually have two separate physical routes so that, in the case

of a disaster, one line will always be working if the other is

compromised."

"So let's say that certain lines of this phone system may be

down while others are still working. But, if a worker wasn't

aware of that, after picking up a phone or two, he might assume

that the entire system was down- unless he knew!"

"Even if the worker knew the phones were working, he must also

know what the priorities are and, if contacting someone is

necessary, he must know whom to call. When he calls, he must ask

for what he needs and he must count on the recipient to also

know what can and must be delivered. Time is short in a

disaster."

"In the case of the hurricane Katrina disaster, some of the

confusion caused by lack of an informed team, can be seen in the

situation revolving around the failure to utilize local school

buses in the New Orleans evacuation. While there may be plenty

of blame to be assigned..., there are some valuable lessons to

be drawn from the event. It is a clear example of a disaster

plan being there to draw from, but not being implemented,"

commented Russo.

According to the State disaster plan, Southeast Louisiana

Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan of January 2000, "The

primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles.

School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and

vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide

transportation for individuals who lack transportation and

require assistance in evacuating."

According to Mayor Nagin's famous interview on WWL, the New

Orleans radio station that stayed on the air during the

disaster, "I need reinforcements. I need troops, man. I need

five hundred buses, man." When referring to the suggestion by

some to have public school drivers come to New Orleans to help

evacuate, Mayor Nagin exclaimed "...you gotta be kidding me!

This is a national disaster! Get every doggone Greyhound bus

line in the country and get...moving to New Orleans! ..."

Regardless of who is to blame, many rightly raised questions:

Why couldn't the State provide assistance? Why weren't the

National Guard sent in to commandeer those buses? Why was the

Mayor talking about Greyhound instead of talking about the

school buses he had planned to use for immediate assistance?

Despite Senator Mary Landrieu's claims that the buses were

flooded, when questioned by newscaster, Chris Wallace, she could

not adequately respond to the claim that the flooding occurred

after the school buses were supposed to be used for evacuation.

The main point, says Russo ( www.INCons.com ) is "Even though

everyone needs a disaster recovery plan today, what's the use of

a plan if you don't use it as a framework for action?"

These discrepancies, miscommunications and assignments of blame

veil the simple facts. The State plan called for something and,

when local resources failed - namely, the availability of local

bus drivers, the State did not move in to assist. The Louisiana

Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan clearly states, "State

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transportation resources will be made available to assist local

authorities in transporting special needs persons and persons

who do not have their own transportation."

Did the State help to man the buses? "It wasn't done." points

out Russo. He goes on to say, "In a business, all senior

management needs to be involved in the creation of the disaster

recovery plan. All senior management needs to know what their

role is in a business disaster and to delegate the appropriate

role to those they supervise. Everyone needs to be on the same

page. It doesn't really matter who fails in a disaster, the

consequences can be devastating. The important thing is that

everybody knows and executes their role so that disaster

recovery plans don't go astray."

"I don't know who or why the buses were not used in the New

Orleans bus situation but the failure of higher officials to

fully know and execute their own plan is very obvious. It could

be analogous to a business having a hot site in place, a

secondary location for office equipment, furniture, computers

and communication equipment, etc., and key personnel not knowing

about this location or where it was; or, not having a backup

system to make hard copies of data and losing all your company's

data; or, not having effective data storage backup on the

Internet."

Russo concluded, "No one can withstand a computer disaster these

days. The responsibility for failure becomes academic after

everything is lost. Our goal with our clients is always to

minimize human failure and maximize recovery and backup. The

disaster recovery business is important these days."

A business disaster recovery plan and a government disaster

recovery plan have many common components. They must include as

much recovery planning as possible, they must be understood by

all concerned, they must consist of real, available resources

and there must be a system of delegation to people who in turn

know what their role is. Even with all of this in most cases,

one element is paramount, when disaster strikes, the workable

parts of the backup disaster plan must be actually executed. To

this end, the plan must be fully known and in the hands of

capable people who will actually carry it out. Only this way can

business continuity be safeguarded and restored in an emergency.

Bruce Prokopets Executive Editor Press Direct International

www.pressdirectinternational.org

About the author:

Bruce Prokopets, Executive Editor of Press Direct International