Post-Isabel, IT managers say preparation paid off

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/recovery/story/0,10801,85187,00.html

Story by Lucas Mearian 
SEPTEMBER 19, 2003 
COMPUTERWORLD 

Hurricane Isabel dissipated today, leaving behind at least 17 people
dead and more than 4 million people without electricity. It also left
in its wake a slew of IT managers grateful that the storm wasn't any
worse.  In Washington, in an area hit hard by flooding, Ned Ingraham,
senior IT manager at the District of Columbia's Emergency Management
Agency, reported that electricity remained on and computer systems
kept working in his bunker throughout the hurricane's worst blows
yesterday.

Ingraham was forced to bring in additional laptops for members of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency who used his office as a command
center, but with the exception of a "few minor problems," things went
smoothly. In fact, Ingraham was particularly proud of a geographic
information system that allowed IT personnel to plot the location of
about 300 downed trees, broken power lines and power outages, which in
turn allowed emergency workers to respond with greater efficiency.

"The Department of Transportation and Public Works used the maps to
determine problem areas and used routing software to direct their
vehicles," he said.

Ingraham said he was also glad he had performed a major test on the
agency's emergency backup generator last week, which allowed him to
call in technicians to connect several circuits that should have been
on the power grid but weren't.

Meanwhile, Martin Colburn, chief technology officer at the National
Association of Securities Dealers Inc. in Rockville, Md., said his IT
systems, which support 5,300 brokerage firm members, were up and
running on backup generator power and a skeleton crew this afternoon.  
"We got hit pretty hard. We've had flooding and significant power
outages [in the area]. But our administrative facility came up very
clearly. We've not had any missed transactions," he said.

Colburn's advice for other IT managers: prepare, prepare, prepare. "We
started preparing several days ago to ensure we had our business
continuity plans in place," he said.

Farther north, Ralph DeSantis, a spokesman for the Three Mile Island
Generating Station, the Exelon Corp.-owned nuclear plant in
Middletown, Pa., said officials at the plant braced for the storm.  
Backup power supplies for several network communications servers were
on standby during the storm but weren't needed. And extra staffers
were brought in just in case of high winds and large rainfall amounts.  
"But the storm never got that severe," DeSantis said.

Although there were prestorm worries about mobile communications,
Atlanta-based Cingular Wireless said its Mobitex network was operating
well today, with just one site affected in Virginia. Some sites are
operating on battery backup in North Carolina and Virginia, however,
the company said in a statement.

In the Washington/Baltimore area, about 95% of Cingular's wireless
sites are operational, with just 1% running on batteries or generator
backup due to the commercial power outage. In the
Philadelphia/Delaware area, all Cingular switches were fully
operational with no cell sites down.

Verizon Communications was also keeping some 200 telecommunications
switching stations and offices in the Virginia/Delaware area up and
running, according to Eric Rabe, a spokesman for the company. "As long
as we keep the diesel fuel in generators filled, we'll be fine. We
obviously know there's a lot of damage from the storm, and we will be
surveying it ourselves and do what we can to restore that today," said
Rabe.

He said no major circuits were knocked out by the storm, which was
headed into Canada late this afternoon.

Todd R. Weiss contributed to this report.



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