ndal88a (12/13/2012)
Two examples of disaster recovery plans going bad:- my former employer had a small office in Wall Street and then came 9/11. Nothing happened to office, but lower Manhattan was closed. Company had DR plan and there was DR site in somewhere Jersey but when people got there, it was already taken by some other company. Plan B was to fly employees to headquarters but all flights were grounded
- other former employer, after hurricane Vilma in Miami, DR worked, generators started and services were up and running but then people realized nobody can deliver diesel. Luckily company didn't run out of diesel, electricity came back just when there were only fumes left in diesel tank
- current employer has DR site somewhere in north and asking them how long companies typically stay there after disaster, their answer, they still have New Orleans area companies operating there, since hurricane Katrina.
Ond of Mayor Guliani's initiatives was a major state of the art emergency command center for government services in case of emergency. Unfortunately it was housed in the WTC.
DR requires more than 1 kind of approach. A fire or explosion in your building destroys your equpment but leaves infrastructure around you intact, getting replacement facilities is not hard. A large scale weather crisis or earthquake is the opposite, your equipment may well be intact but you have no infrastructure (it doesn't have to be a 'Sandy', every few years a major ice storm will bring down power to large areas, taking weeks to come back on line). And everyone will be competing for whatever infrastructure is left.
What about a major disease pandemic? Transportation could be shut down. Population placed under quarantine. Or large scale rioting (LA?). Even after Sandy the town where my daughter lives was on complete lockdown dusk till dawn. No foot traffic, no vehicles, not even residents. Consider businesses located in such an area (there were quite a few).
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