>>Come on people, don't let me be the only one with a heroic story.<<

I don't have much in the way of disaster recovery stories.  I have one
or two from litigations.

The first goes back a while.  Several years ago I approached senior
management of a company for two positions for six months to go through
several hundred rolls of microfilm and destroy outdated correspondence.
The response was "what can it hurt".  I explained that keeping
correspondence longer than its retention time could lead to some
difficult consequences for the company.  Their response was still no.  I
tried a second time with no better results.

Fast forward a half dozen years...the original partners of the project
had defaulted on a large loan.  As a result, the DOE had acquired the
company and sold it.  The original partners decided not to honor the
contracts they had agreed to when they first received the loan guarantee
from the DOE.  I now worked for the successor company who went to court
to enforce the contracts.  Using the old microfilm, we were able to
shred every basis under which they claimed relief from the contracts.
The same folks who twice denied my request for temporary staff were now
being deposed and asked to respond to the documents they though were so
harmless just a few short years ago.  Bottom line:  Settlement of $389
Million.

In another case, we were class representative in an action against the
specialty steel industry.  When it came time to distribute the proceeds,
utilities were able to make a claim.  Twice the attorneys approached our
utility company and asked them to make a claim, twice our engineering
and procurement folks said we had no claim to make.  The attorneys asked
if I would look into it.  Our general counsel gave me permission to
review the records and make a claim.  Bottom line: $1.5 Million.

In the same case, a piping company made a claim on the settlement award,
stating they were harmed by the specialty steel makers also.  The
attorneys asked me if I thought the claim was warranted.  I told them
absolutely not.  I provided records showing that the piping company was
a subsidiary of one of the major defendants in the class action.  The
original $750,000+ claimed was distributed to other plaintiffs.

I have one story relating to vital records protection.  A week before
the 1997 Grand Forks, ND flood.  Dr. Langemo and myself gave a series of
vital records/disaster recovery presentations across the Red River
Valley.  One of the attendees was an engineering firm.  Based on our
discussion, they decided to move records normally retained in the
basement from the ground floor to the second floor to provide an added
level of protection against the flooding.  You guessed it, the records
were burned.  Something we had warned against in the presentations,
fires are frequent when floods happen.

Bill R

Bill Roach, CRM
Enterprise EDMS Coordinator
State of North Dakota
ITD/Records Management
701-328-3589

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