> I'm not sure that there would be any business continuity plan that could
> accommodate the disaster that has befallen New Orleans. How would one be
> able to protect against such flooding? How would any organization have the
> time and the ability to move records to another facility, somewhere else?
> 

Actually Doug, this is EXACTLY WHAT a BCP is supposed to address, not only 
what might happen, but the worst case scenarios for the organization and 
then it's up to the organization's risk management team to determine what 
you design your BCP to protect for.

In New Orleans, they had the past knowledge of Camille to predict a prior 
worst case scenario, and they have the ongoing knowledge of being below sea 
level and being in the prevailing path of hurricanes to indicate a need to 
consider either redundancy or primary storage in locations other than the 
primary places of business.

With two days notice and highways being clogged as they were, no one is 
going to move everything out to an alternate location after the storm 
trackers predict landfall, but if you know there is a high probability that 
it will happen sooner or later, you seek out a better alternative for your 
primary data and information storage.

We're in known earthquake country and the standard for continuity here is 
"minimum 40 miles radius from any known active earthquake fault" for hot 
sites, warm sites or backup data storage. Many companies employ the use of 
redundant copies (planned dispersal) for vital records protection. We always 
live under the threat of "it's not IF, it's WHEN" the next big one is going 
to happen. And when it comes to physical record storage, although you may 
pay a bit more for deliveries, etc., the cost of storage is typically less 
in more remote areas.

-- 
Larry Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972

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