Frances, Charley Teach Us Lessons in Continuity

Sep 1, 2004 12:00 PM, LARRY ANDERSON, Editor

           

The remnants of Hurricane Frances did very little damage in Atlanta, where our editorial office is located. By the time the once-mighty storm made it this far inland, it had dissipated to the point of involving little more than some wind and heavy rain. Even so, the winds of Frances were potent enough to cause some power outages. At our office, the lights went out at around noon one day during the worst of the storm — and within two hours, our business had closed for the day and employees had gone home, mostly because they didn't have much else to do without electricity.

The storms in Florida — and even their relatively minor side effects hundreds of miles away — have recently served as a reminder of the importance of business continuity planning. In our modern times, most companies' biggest assets are its people and information. Much of that information is contained inside computer systems that are vulnerable to hurricane damage and even to much less dramatic calamities. However, surprisingly, only about 60 percent of businesses are doing any kind of disaster recovery, says John Jackson, vice president of business continuity and recovery for IBM.

In an article in the St. Petersburg Times, Jackson recommends backing up data and protecting it, whether it's electronic or paper, and storing it off-site. He also recommends having a place to get back in business, preparing a disaster recovery plan and knowing where employees will be and how to regroup.

People are indeed a key element, and some businesses in Florida after Hurricane Charley were especially proactive in tracking down employees. “We sent a team of security people out to track down every one of them: at home, in shelters, through the Red Cross,” said Carey Watson, senior vice president of advertising for Burdines-Macy's department store in Port Charlotte, Fla. “We didn't care about them not working. We just wanted to be sure they were OK and learn what they needed to get back on their feet.” The need to track down employees was a lesson many Florida retailers learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the Times reported.

Employees' dependence on tools such as e-mail and instant messaging makes it imperative that these systems get up and running soon. “Some customers are telling us that (these systems are) more critical than (even getting) the phones up because that's how they communicate,” said Jackson.

I was encouraged that, even during a power outage, I was able to participate in a conference call and even find my way out of the building, thanks to backup generators and well-placed exit signs.

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