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Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery - Risk Analysis and Control
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Hurricanes Wilma, Katrina And Rita Force Businesses To Rethink Computer
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
Associated Websites
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
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
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