Hurricane Irene Threatens US Northeast; Cover Your Assets

jfruhlinger writes "Hurricane Irene is bearing down on the heavily populated U.S. Northeast Corridor. If you work in IT, you know that there are few things that are worse for electronics than water; so, what's your plan? Tom Henderson has come up with a checklist, which sensibly includes backing everything up, twice; not that you have time for it now, but for future reference you might want to consider just moving your whole data center to a location that's been conveniently pre-hardened, like a water tower or a boiler room." Note that Irene has been no joke in the Caribbean; in Puerto Rico (with relatively modern infrastructure), about a third of the island lost power.

Comments

No worries here...

[impaledsunset]

I don't worry about Hurricanes, I have TornadoGuard on my iPhone.

Re:No worries here...

[Anonymous Coward]

After the earthquake, the server room floor has enough cracks to drain the flooding caused by the holes in the roof.

Re:No worries here...

[jonadab]

Yeah, no worries here, either. I live in central Ohio (close enough to the Mississippi/St.Lawrence continental divide that I've actually crossed it while walking the dog really -- yes, really), and I estimate that for a hurricane to get this far inland, this far north, and this far above sea level, not to mention crossing the entire Appalachian mountain system, with any significant punch left, the storm in question would have to be at least a category twelve, probably more like fifteen, on the scale where Katrina was a mere five. If that happens, keeping electronics operational will be the least of our worries. The whole eastern seaboard would be under more than a thousand feet of water.

Frankly, a severe blizzard in August is more likely.

Re:No worries here...

[camperdave]

A hurricane is big enough to push normal storm cells around and disrupt local weather far inland. Just because the hurricane itself may not hit you doesn't mean you won't feel the effects.

Re:No worries here...

[bobdole369]

This is actually incorrect. Think of the atmosphere as the surface of a balloon, much like curved space. There are large "mountains" and deep "valleys" (ridges and troughs) - domes of high pressure and bowls of low pressure. When a massive LP system such as a hurricane creates a large dip in the surface, it is steered by (pointed in the direction by) high pressure cells, around the periphery of them, and powered by the general flow of air around them as well.

Low pressure systems are generally attracted to each other - but they are actually steered by the higher pressures around the individual systems. They'll even combine in severe instances.

A low pressure system cannot push ANYTHING around. It will only be moved around by the higher pressures, towards the areas of lower pressures. It doesn't have a mind of its own, and she obeys the laws of physics.

I will agree that it disrupts local weather far inland, as seen this morn in South FL. The first burst of energy that come to the coast sparked a convective line of storms that produced 40kt winds locally and a good amount of rain. The outflow has increased the local temps and humidity, and will likely leave an inversion layer in place as she leaves, thus we'll be hot, miserable, and it won't rain.

Re:No worries here...

[DRJlaw]

Yeah, no worries here, either. I live in central Ohio (close enough to the Mississippi/St.Lawrence continental divide that I've actually crossed it while walking the dog really -- yes, really), and I estimate that for a hurricane to get this far inland, this far north, and this far above sea level, not to mention crossing the entire Appalachian mountain system, with any significant punch left, the storm in question would have to be at least a category twelve, probably more like fifteen, on the scale where Katrina was a mere five.

Recently moved there, did you? Hurricane Ike did a pretty good number on central Ohio despite only being a category 4 storm. 2008 wasn't that long ago either.

About the only accurate part of your post is the crossing the Appalachian limitation... Hurricanes that reach Ohio tend to dodge the Appalachians by way of that pesky Gulf of Mexico.

Puerto Rico

[afidel]

Yeah right, power and telecom frequently go out in a moderate thunderstorm down there. I have a coworker that's dealt with many offices at three different employers over the last 15 years and they've all had the same kinds of problems. The solution is to UPS everything and just not sweat it when the offices down there lose internet because you will NOT be able to get someone to respond in under 4 hours like you will stateside.

Re:Puerto Rico

[madhatter256]

No one in Puerto Rico panics like they do in the US when it comes to Hurricanes. 99.9% of buildings are concrete.

My grand parents live down there and went a whole month without power and electricity during the 2004 hurricanes. They have a cistern in the back that collects rain water in case the water supply gets tainted and generators in case electricity goes out.

Lots of people do and live with it. Hurricanes and mudslides are no problem for us.

Re:Puerto Rico

[maxwell demon]

99.9% of buildings are concrete.

I see, you have a very low level of abstraction in your buildings. :-)

Re:Puerto Rico

[Grishnakh]

Wood is a shitty construction material.

Tell that to all the people in Haiti, who still haven't recovered from the earthquake there a couple years ago. Or the people in various other 3rd-world cities where everything's made of concrete and they didn't think earthquakes were a concern until one hit.

Concrete is a terrible construction material, unless you reinforce it with a lot of steel. But steel's expensive compared to plain concrete.

Re:We're not shaking in our boots.

[JustSomeProgrammer]

It's predicted to be a category 1 or 2 when it hits NJ and could still be a hurricane when it hits NYC. Although it could be *just* a tropical storm which only causes heavy rainfall and moderate to sever flooding.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at4.shtml?5-daynl?large#contents And NYC is already developing an evacuation plan in case the storm does come close.

http://gothamist.com/2011/08/25/hurricane_irene_is_coming_heres_a_m.php#photo-1

Tornado goes WHOOOOSH!

[AnotherAnonymousUser]

http://xkcd.com/937/

Re:Data centers

[hesiod]

The virtual world has no natural disasters!

Just virtualize your virtual servers so your system is 100% virtual with no hardware, and you have a completely unusable system that can't be damaged because it doesn't exist! Wait, what was the question again? ...to the cloud!

Re:We're not shaking in our boots.

[toastar]

As a Texan, I consider New York to be part of New England, They're all yanks to me.

Re:We're not shaking in our boots.

[Alien Being]

That's ok. We think of Texas as a part of Mexico.

Our servers are flood-proofed

[PPH]

Our IT guys assured us we are OK. Cheetos absorb 47 times their weight in water.

Re:That brings up an interesting question

[characterZer0]

If you cannot restore your backups without an Internet connection, you do not have backups.

PR Is just a step up from a 3rd world country

[Kildjean]

"Note that Irene has been no joke in the Caribbean; in Puerto Rico (with relatively modern infrastructure), about a third of the island lost power."

Dont fucking insult me. Relatively modern infrastructure? We don't build our buildings with fucking wood and gypsum board... We use armed concrete... that is why we can take a Category 5 Hurricane (like Hugo) or Category 4 (like Georges or Katrina) and survive it without the DRAMA the US experienced with Katrina... When we get a hurricane like that, we receive it with Don Q Rum and in a Beach Chair...

Now If you had said that the island was a step up from a third world country, I couldn't agree with you more... If the goverment agencies did their job right one third of the island wouldn't have lost power and water for more than a day... The services down there are such a fucking joke compared to 20yrs ago when a Category 5 Hurricane would cause the same inconveniences that this Category 1 hurricane caused.

Don't let me get started on the "puppet" we got as a governor... he makes Obama look competent...

Re:WTF, don't you people have windows?

[NotSanguine]

The power comes through the basement and I'd bet dollars to donuts that the transfer switches that switch to generator power are down there as well. A bunch of London banks found out that this is a common mistake when the Thames flooded last year.

[Emphasis Added]

Perhaps yes, perhaps no. I can't speak to the locations of specific equipment at every location in Manhattan. However, having done consulting and full-time work for a surprising (at least it was to me when I counted them all up) number of Fortune 100 companies, I can tell you that the financial sector is well prepared for almost any eventuality.

In fact, at one firm their primary data center was (and still is, I'm sure) located in the desert of the southwest (as several posters pointed out, it's a pretty good place to avoid natural disasters). The data center looks just like all the other buildings in the office park where it lives. However, unlike the other buildings, The outer walls are feet-thick steel reinforced concrete and access is strictly controlled. It's weatherproof and mostly bombproof. Power comes from multiple mains and generators can provide (as long as they have fuel) power almost indefinitely. Other firms' data centers/hot sites may not be quite so hardened, but they have plenty of equipment and geographic diversity. This makes weather (however severe) in one region a temporary inconvenience rather than a disaster. Too much money is at stake to take any chances with their businesses.

Other, smaller companies for whom milliseconds aren't quite so important have hot, warm and even cold sites in geographically diverse locations which might cause significant disruption if a switch-over is required, but only for as long as it takes to get the DR site into production.

None of this stuff is new and emergency procedures have been further refined since we had a few problems here in NYC about ten years ago. You might have heard about that.