Carolyn,

I was not referring to your post--I was referring to Larry's, right above
mine on the website.

I believe you bring up some very good points.  I believe as a company,
based on the articles I have read, Iron Mountain was proactive in the
removal of records from the areas affected and for management of the
situation.  If I recall correctly, it wasn't until Thursday or Friday that
the storm veered off towards NOLA.  In their statements, they have moved
records to higher ground for safety and moved others further inland as
well.

One other point I would like to bring up that hasn't been talked about
much--why do so many companies prize a close storage location for records
and back-up data over a safer area?  From talking with my counterparts in
other corporations, many have a minimum distance required from their
facility to store vital records and data back-ups--some require these to
be stored at least 30-50 miles away.  (We are required to store at least
35 miles away for this reason alone.)  Granted, non-vital paper files are
usually not accounted for in this situation and their destruction should
not be vital to the survival of the company.

I think what all storage companies face in situations like this is the
desire of the customers to have items stored close for convenience rather
than futher away for safety.  Further, this situation causes potential
conflicts for us as customers, since facilities are usually located closer
to cities and in many cases, the customers they service.

As a records manager, given the recent situation, I would review any
disaster recovery plan to determine if I'm doing the right thing.  At this
point, I believe people like the one in the article listed probably didn't
have a good plan in place for a situation like this.

At what point does convenience of storage outweigh a sensible disaster
recovery planning?  At what point does the average consumer of a records
storage company take these potential issues into account and start storing
vitals and data further away from their own facilities?

Would it make sense for a paradigm shift in the storage mentality of
records centers to store items further away, while sacrificing some ease
of access of records to reduce the chance of a situation like this
happening?

All questions I have asked myself since this disaster and many previous
ones.

Regards,

Bill

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