Re: Tech Comms for disaster relief

[Al Geist <al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>]

I agree with John that prudent or not, a lot of companies talk about 
disaster plans, but few have them implemented.  I worked for 20 years in 
Alaska, where one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded hit and 
experienced the November '02 quake (7.9 magnitude) that hit the state's 
interior.  I attended meetings where the subject was brought up and 
everyone talked about need to implementing a disaster recovery plan.  
Committees were formed, studies were done and draft plans were even 
written, but that's where it usually ended.  In most cases, disaster 
recovery meant locating the weekly tape backups off site.  Sure, there 
were plans for the pipeline, for the railroad and for the people, but 
data?  "We can store the tapes over at Fred's house.  He lives up on a 
hill."  (I'm talking about small businesses here.  I do not have a clue 
what the disaster recovery plan was for the Geophysical Institute and 
the Arctic Research Center with their two Cray IIIs and the NEC 
supercomputer.)

The disaster that has just struck NO may have been predicted, but few 
small companies implement plans on predictions.  They're too busy trying 
to squeeze out a profit.  Many use the "pray and hope plan"...they pray 
that the disaster doesn't happen, and if it does, hope they can 
recover.  In the case of Katrina's aftermath, I doubt seriously if many 
of the smaller businesses will ever recover, especially if all their 
records are under polluted water.  Most will probably write it off and 
start over from scratch.  Middle size companies may survive if they had 
offices in other cities and kept duplicate backups there.  In either 
case, this means there will be little if any money for technical 
writers, or for any other employees.

Just my 2 cents.

Al

Bonnie Granat wrote: