Preparing Computer and Cellular Networks For a Hurricane

CWmike writes "As Hurricane Gustav approaches the US Gulf Coast, IT lessons learned from the devastating Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that smashed New Orleans and other areas in 2005 are on the minds of many worried IT managers. David Avgikos, president of Digimation Inc., a 3-D digital animation software company in St. Rose, Louisiana, said, 'We don't have to be told twice.' Meanwhile, the nation's major cellular network providers say that they too are prepared, having learned from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Still, they offer some helpful tips for dealing with what is expected to be a category-three hurricane when it hits: use text vs. calling on your cell phone, and if you use a cordless for your landline, ditch it for a corded model so that it will still work if there are power outages."

Comments

I use a more sophisticated strategy...

[ScentCone]

... I use an above-sea-level datacenter, conspicuously located at a comfortable distance from major tornado, earthquake, forst fire, and locust infestation corridors. That whole "above sea level" part is particularly helpful.

Re:I use a more sophisticated strategy...

[appleguru]

That's Google's strategy.. seems to work pretty good for them ;)

From http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/pdf/ds_gsa_apps_whitepaper_0207.pdf :

"The geographic locations of the datacenters were chosen to give protection against catastrophic events"

Geographically disperse full redundancy is also a major key factor.

None of that, of course, helps protect infrastructure in hurricane prone areas. To do that you need to bury power and data lines deep underground, shield them from vibration and moisture, and protect them from faults from failing hardware above ground. Keeping the mobile phone infrastructure up and running may require severely ruggedizing towers... but even then, antennas on top of buildings, etc, are still vulnerable... If a hurricane rips up the building your cell antennas are on.. there's not much you can do (Other then roll in your disaster recovery unit (Like AT&Ts http://www.corp.att.com/ndr/ )

power not really the whole problem

[Anonymous Coward]

For Katrina, I was comfortably away in Houston... with a 504 area code cell phone, that was, for the most part, useless.

If all the 504 traffic HAS to go thru New Orleans, and most everything is down there, why can't they somehow re-route 504 calls to be handled by a different location?

If Atlanta was hit by a hurricane, and you were in Nebraska at the time, wouldn't you want your 404 area code cell phone to still work?

Trust me, unless they've made substantial changes in the way the network routes calls, it won't!

Text vs. Voice

[randall77]

> One tip: Use text instead of voice
Wait a minute, did I just hear the cellular providers admit that text uses less resources than voice? When is that insight going to make it to the pricing on my calling plan?

Nah

[thermian]

The most important thing you can do in preparation for a hurricane is pick the paint out of the screws holding your doors on.

Been there, cursed while the screwdriver spun uselessly, and never painted over a screw since.

I know a better one

[thermian]

In the 1970's the Council of Oxford, England built a nuclear bomb shelter beneath one of the buildings they owned.

During a briefing to the towns various community leaders they explained that they would have no problems with water supply because the shelter had a water tank, situated on the roof of the building which housed the shelter.

I know this because my uncle was one of those community leaders. He tried to question this somewhat bizarre design decision, but apparently the representative making the presentation failed to understand the problem.

Dead Center

[b4upoo]

The thing about cordless vs. wired telephones really won't matter much if you really get hit by a hurricane. Simply put there is no one to call at all. Police, fire and rescue serves are all unavailable for quite some time both during and after a hurricane. Until crews get the roads cleared and that is after the roads are no longer rivers, then and only then can emergency responders get through to aid you. As far as cell phones go the cell towers go out of whack as soon as the storm starts. The same is true of cable systems.
        The best way to ride out storms is elsewhere.Evacuate and go to Vegas and gamble or something. And as far as IT functions it would be great to have a second central hub that could take over for any site under the wrath of a hurricane.

What went right in Katrina: ham radio

[leighklotz]

Technocrat reports:

The Bush Administration's Katrina report has an appendix called what went right, with praise for Amateur Radio:

Other organizations worked tirelessly to assist emergency responders that, due to the storm, did not have the equipment and means to effectively carry out their duties. Amateur Radio Operators from both the Amateur Radio Emergency Service and the American Radio Relay League, monitored distress calls and rerouted emergency requests for assistance throughout the U.S. until messages were received by emergency response personnel.

Ham Radio works because each it's a heterogeneous mesh network of intelligent agents using agile frequency hopping to provide connectionless redundant relay of messages. Yes, we do that!

Leigh/WA5ZNU