Kinda staying out of this for personal reasons- there are facts and figures
available, it might be best for the initial requester to do a bit more
digging personally. Many who were touched by this directly aren't interested
in sharing stories, especially this close to an anniversary date and with
some of the other issues re: the site in the news recently.  There are still
a lot of unhealed wounds related to the events of that day.

One thing I'd like to mention in addition to Dick's comment about
backups/DRPs that didn't work because they hadn't been refreshed or properly
exercised is this event was something that scenarios hadn't been developed
for.  Most of the DR planning was around either single site human caused or
at most regional weather related or other 'natural caused' events.  

No one considered an event that could potentially bring down an entire
building, or multiple buildings in a less than one square mile area.  Even
following the OKC Murrah Building event, DRPs hadn't been revised to take
that scenario into account.  And insufficient data had been gathered to plan
properly for a Cat V hurricane, followed by another on a similar path only
20 days later (Rita was actually Cat III when it hit land).

The point I wanted to raise was many of the firms in WTC1 and 2 felt they
had done an adequate job of continuity planning by having their recovery
data stored 40 floors below them, or in the adjacent tower, or even having
it in a data vault (and I DO mean a real rated data vault!) in WTC 5, 6 or
7.  Some organizations ran mirrored servers in these other locations, and
none of this was considered "risky behavior" prior to the events of Sept 11,
2001. In this type of situation, this was a common practice- they weren't
subject to earthquakes of flooding, so who would have considered the need
for a "40 mile radius away form known threats" like you do in earthquake
country?

The mention of Katrina/Rita was in support of Dick's search for data there.
 There were a number of organizations on the Gulf Coast who had their
backups and DR Data stored in Texas, a good plan for dodging the bullet of a
direct attack on the Gulf, but no one thought a second storm of a similar
magnitude would come so soon on it's heels and that it could take a cut
directly at their chosen 'safe haven'.

More has been done, and MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE to develop planning that takes
into account the potential of something horrible of this magnitude happening
again. And more needs to be done to develop plans for organizations along
the Gulf Coast to ensure their backups and recovery data is MUCH further
inland and out of any known potential paths of storms.

Larry
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[Yes, it's really me =) ]

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