Disaster Recovery

INSTRUCTIONS: All responses must be prepared in Microsoft Word format and uploaded to the appropriate online assignment. Please include your name, course number, week number and assignment name at the top of your submissions (for example MargaretFoltz-ISSC366-Week4 Assignment).

Read chapters 10, 11 & 12. Answer each question with at least 350 words. (Total of 700 words minimum)

1) With respect to disaster recovery – describe the difference between hot, warm, and cold recovery sites.

2) Does the organization where you work have a disaster recovery site? If so, what type do they have? Do you agree with their recovery site strategy (why or why not)? If you are unable to determine if your organization has a disaster recovery site – what type of site do you feel would be best for your organization?

C H A P T E R 1 2

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER
Take Control of the Situation

Congress can make a general,
but it takes a radio operator to

make him a commanding general.
—USMC Radio Operator School slogan

INTRODUCTION

After you have developed your disaster recovery plan the final step is the creation
of your Emergency Operations Center. The terms Emergency Operations Center,
war room, and Command Center all invoke images of serious-faced people
feverishly scurrying around trying to address one major problem or another.
These terms imply action and direction of resources toward a goal. For the
Emergency Operations Center, the goal is the return to service from a business
emergency. In this sense, an Emergency Operations Center is a temporary tool to
coordinate your containment and recovery efforts.

The radio school quote at the top of this page, trite as it is, provides a great
deal of insight into a serious problem. Unless leaders can communicate with their
workers, they are unable to lead. Imagine a horde of well-meaning technical
people (and a few who amuse themselves with mischief ) all scurrying around
trying to fix a problem regardless of what the person on their left or right is doing.
Some people would be wiring equipment up, only to have someone come in
behind them and disconnect everything. No coordinated action, no focused
activity, just confusion. Of course, you would have no clue as to the progress being
made while your boss demands an accurate update every hour. Not a pretty sight.

Now consider the alternative. A disaster occurs, and everyone knows where to
report. Someone at the recovery site is documenting who is available and assigning
them to teams based on the problem and each individual’s expertise. As a team is
created, they are dispatched under the direction of a single person. As the teams

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER 199

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EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) – printed on 1/27/2018 1:57 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM
AN: 349248 ; Wallace, Michael, Webber, Larry.; The Disaster Recovery Handbook : A Step-by-Step Plan to
Ensure Business Continuity and Protect Vital Operations, Facilities, and Assets
Account: s7348467.main.ehost

leave, their locations and composition are noted on a status board. Relief teams
are sent out so the teams assigned earlier can be rested. The status board and the
disaster coordinator are up to date to answer executive questions about the
recovery. Sound like a control freak’s dream? No, it is just a focused effort.

A disaster recovery Emergency Operations Center is essential when addressing
serious or wide-scale disasters. An Emergency Operations Center allows a company’s
management to reestablish organizational leadership, allocate resources, and
focus on emergency containment and recovery. This Command Center minimizes
the disruption of management and leadership caused by the chaos of the
emergency. From a business perspective, it is a command and control center that
is essentially a temporary project office to manage the special project of addressing
the emergency. An Emergency Operations Center must be preestablished and
presupplied, with its location well known to everyone before it is needed.

An Emergency Operations Center takes time and effort to start up and close
down. Before a disaster strikes, you should have three Emergency Operations
Centers identified. The first is the obvious place to which people go in a limited
emergency. For short-term, contained disasters, you probably already have a
place where “everybody knows and everybody goes.” This could be the security
office with its radio network or the data processing help desk with its data network
monitoring capability. Wherever your choice, it should have a telephone number
that people would think to call during an emergency. Even smaller disasters have
their own natural Emergency Operations Center of sorts. If your company lost its
data network, then the Network Manager’s office is turned into the hub of activity
as a small team works to restore service. This works because the response team is
a small group and the Network Manager’s office is a natural place for them to work.

The second Emergency Operations Center addresses big problems and is the
primary subject of this chapter. Imagine a winter storm that collapses the warehouse
roof. Resolving this problem requires many people with a wide range of skills.
Because the roof collapse was unforeseen, a plan to limit the damage and begin
repairs would be created quickly and modified as the recovery progressed. This
type of Emergency Operations Center will be in use for many days and is therefore
worth the effort to set up. The size and composition of the Emergency Operations
Center team depends on how widespread the damage was and how many people
are needed to address it.

The third type of Emergency Operations Center is a backup facility for the
primary Emergency Operations Center. This facility would only be used if the
primary Emergency Operations Center was unusable; for example, if a fire burned
that part of the building and the rest of the building was in danger of collapse. You
need a place to contact customers, suppliers, employees, etc., to keep them aware
of the recovery progress.

A further variation on the Command Center is a mobile Command Center that
uses a camping trailer or self-propelled recreation vehicle to bring the solution to
the problem. This is a good solution for a large company with many sites, such as
a large chain of department stores.

200 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

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EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) – printed on 1/27/2018 1:57 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM
AN: 349248 ; Wallace, Michael, Webber, Larry.; The Disaster Recovery Handbook : A Step-by-Step Plan to
Ensure Business Continuity and Protect Vital Operations, Facilities, and Assets
Account: s7348467.main.ehost

WHAT IS A DISASTER RECOVERY EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER?

A disaster recovery Emergency Operations Center is a physical place where all the
communications of the recovery effort are focused. Sometimes called a “war
room” to dramatize its importance, it provides a known place where all interested
parties can report on the status of the recovery effort. The Emergency Operations
Center also provides communications to all stakeholders external to the recovery
process, such as company executives, the general public, suppliers, and customers.
Another key function is to provide administrative support to the recovery effort,
such as purchasing, public relations, safety, and site security.

The phrase “a known place” is important. When disaster strikes, there is no
time to announce to everyone where the Emergency Operations Center will be. It
is too late then. In your company, the Emergency Operations Center should be
some logical place where people would turn for information or assistance. Two
logical places are the facility’s security office and the data center’s help desk.

An Emergency Operations Center has three essential functions:

1. Command and Control. This is where you will find the person in charge of the
containment and recovery efforts. This person will set objectives and priorities
and has overall responsibility at the incident or event.

2. Operational Control. Hour-by-hour control is exercised from here by the
various functional areas, such as security, human resources, purchasing,
communications, logistics coordination, etc.

3. Recovery Planning (which is separate from emergency containment) will
begin here but quickly transfer to its own office.

If you would like to see what an Emergency Operations Center might look like,
contact your local Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) office. See
how their model office is set up to get some ideas for your own. Find out where in
your state the next Emergency Operations Center exercise will be held and ask if
you could observe the exercise. You may also receive some advice on the resources
an Emergency Operations Center in your geographic area might require. If possible,
ask for help in selecting a site for the Emergency Operations Center within your
facility. Your local FEMA office will be a wealth of knowledge as you work on your
disaster plan, and it is a good idea to build a working relationship with its personnel
before disaster strikes your facility.

A Personal Experience

Imagine for a moment you are in a very large automotive factory with thousands
of workers and lots of heavy machinery—a very busy place. Everyone is focused on
keeping the production line moving, focused on doing their job right the first time.
It’s a weekday afternoon about 1:45 and—you lose electrical power. The assembly
line stops, the overhead lights blink off, a roar of surprise arises from the assembly
line workers, and then silence falls because all the noisy machinery has also stopped.

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER 201

For the data center, the excitement has just begun. Computer programmers,
whose workstations are now dead, begin walking up offering to help. Some of the
battery-operated emergency lights failed to come on. All the internal data processing
offices were plunged into blackness only faintly lit by a small amount of light
through the glass in the office door, which everyone migrated toward. The
emergency lights had failed. Total chaos!

Meanwhile, in the main computer room, people are milling about wondering
aloud how long the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) battery backup units
would hold and should they begin turning off servers and minicomputers. More
volunteers came flooding in, all with their own advice, some forcefully offered.

The Data Processing Manager personally went to the UPS units to try and
determine how their displays worked in an effort to learn if they could estimate
how long they would last. Still more volunteers were coming in, and others were
leaving, loudly telling everyone that a bunch of idiots were in there since they did
not act immediately on their advice.

Eventually everyone calmed down and began switching off noncritical system
monitors used primarily to observe processes. All printers, test servers, and
servers to systems that could be restarted quickly were shut down. Without air
conditioning, the equipment was beginning to heat the dimly lit (from emergency
lights) computer room.

Eventually others joined the Data Processing Manager to help figure out how
much power was left. A few more flashlights appeared. Finally, building services
called to say that the cause of the problem was discovered and everyone should
be back online within an hour. An estimate, not a promise!

Outside the computer room, people were beginning to grab their coats and
head outside into the daylight, loudly contemplating going home since there
wouldn’t be much of a workday left if the power came on in an hour. More confusion
as people are reminded of their working hours—electricity or not. The group
supervisors were unsure what to do and could not offer any other advice to their
people but to wait and see how long it would take.

Finally, the various system administrators were rounded up from the crowds
and reminded of how ugly these systems become if the UPS runs out of power
before the servers are shut down gracefully (they kept hoping the power would
reappear momentarily). You begin shutting down servers according to how long it
would take to restart them. Your goals were to reduce the drain on the UPS batteries
and extend the UPS battery support for the most critical equipment.

In the end, you worked through the issues and learned a few lessons that are
included in Chapter 14, on electrical service. The points relevant to this chapter
are that:

➤ You did not have a predesignated Emergency Operations Center for a problem
like this, so key people did not know where to report. In the end, the help desk
proved to be the perfect place because it had plenty of telephone lines and
everyone knew the number.

202 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

➤ The prime decision maker (the Data Processing Manager) was absent from
the Emergency Operations Center, trying to learn about the UPS system
because no one knew the details about it. This left decision making in limbo
and fueled chaos. Managers need to focus on making decisions, setting
priorities, and allocating resources. A technician should have been assigned
to investigate the UPS units.

➤ Guesses were made about which systems to shut down instead of following a
predetermined plan. Also, as some system passwords were not available,
those machines, even if noncritical, were left drawing critical power from
the UPS.

➤ Emergency lights failed because no one bothered to check them on a
regular basis.

➤ The only people with flashlights were the ones who went through a similar
facility blackout 5 years before. Basic tools were lacking when they were
needed most.

➤ Many well-intentioned and skilled people were ready and interested in helping
in any way possible, but when they saw the chaos around the manager, they
left in disgust.

➤ Because the data processing people were focused on the computer room, we
forgot that the telephone system was also on a UPS system but the telephone
manager handled the problem on her own initiative. We just were not feeding
repair progress information in that direction.

Where to Locate Your Emergency Operations Center

An Emergency Operations Center should be located as close to the problem site
as is safe. This is rarely practical. If you knew for sure where a disaster would take
place and what it would involve, you would take steps to prevent it. So unless you
are the cause of the problem, you don’t know where it will be. Therefore, when
establishing an Emergency Operations Center, evaluate the possible sites based
on a few criteria, although the actual site is usually based on what is available.

Few companies can afford to leave a fully equipped room sitting idle just in
case it is needed. What most companies do is convert an existing facility to an
Emergency Operations Center as needed. For example, a personal computer
training room is already wired for data and equipped with computers. If extra
telephone lines were run to this room in advance, then with some rearranging of
tables and plugging in of telephones, it can quickly be converted to an Emergency
Operations Center. If a training room is not available, perhaps a large conference
room was wired long ago to support a company activity. Ask your building services
manager for some suggestions.

When picking a site, consider how close it is to a building exit and how likely
it is to be flooded. A typical center is between 500 and 2000 square feet. It should
have a large closet (with a strong door lock) to hold supplies for setting up your

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER 203

Emergency Operations Center. It must be easily accessible by road, have convenient
materials loading and unloading available, and have ready access to delivery
services, food service, and hotels.

Now you also need to set up a backup Emergency Operations Center. The
backup center should be on a different power company electrical grid and be
serviced by a different telephone central office. If you have another facility across
town or in a nearby city, this makes a perfect choice. In this case, your primary
Emergency Operations Center becomes their backup Emergency Operations
Center, and their primary Emergency Operations Center backs up your operation.
This saves money for the company and keeps your company’s recovery actions “in
house” rather than in the public eye. Another advantage is that your backup site
is already connected into your company’s wide-area telephone and data
communications network, allowing for faster Emergency Operations Center
activation.

If this is not possible, consider partnering with another company for a backup
facility. A close supplier or customer makes a good choice. Be sure to work
through how telephone service can be rerouted to this location and complete a
clear legal agreement about company confidential information. Another alternative
is a hotel that is wired for PC training and has sufficient outbound
telecommunications capacity to support your telephone and data traffic.
However, a backup Emergency Operations Center in a hotel might be in use by
someone else in a wide-area emergency, so use this plan as a last resort.

A note on using a backup Emergency Operations Center to control your
recovery operations: expect to relocate it closer to the disaster site within 48
hours, as it will quickly become unwieldy to control operations from a distance.
However, for the first few hours, even a remote facility will be of immense value.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, the City of New York’s Emergency
Operations Center was preparing to execute a biohazard incident exercise. After
the first aircraft struck one of the World Trade Center towers, the Emergency
Operations Center sprang into action. Many key personnel were already onsite
for the exercise. When disaster struck, additional teams were called in, and they
began to coordinate containment and recovery actions. When the twin towers
collapsed, the city lost its emergency “nerve center.” Backup centers were quickly
established, but rescuers struggled to make up for the equipment and trained
staff tragically lost in the wreckage.

Mobile Emergency Operations Center
for Large or Dispersed Companies

Depending on the number of sites you are supporting, you might consider a
mobile Emergency Operations Center. Such a tool is normally a large “camping”

204 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

trailer or self-propelled recreation vehicle. This vehicle is preloaded with everything
necessary to establish a Command Center, including a generator and tent for
expanding the work area outside of the vehicle. This reduces the number of
Emergency Operations Centers required for dispersed companies. For example, if
your company owned freight delivery hubs in major cities and one had a major
fire, then you would immediately activate the mobile center and send it to the
disaster site. The emergency staff could fly in or drive themselves over.

The mobile Command Center (lacking an immediate local telephone capability)
will require multiple cellular phones for voice and data access. As you do not know
in advance where you will be going, it should also include digitized floor plans and
wiring drawings for every building, along with door keys to access critical places
or clear instructions on how to gain access. It should also include temporary
security passes for the entire staff. To save space in the mobile unit, include
electronic telephone books for all areas serviced to speed the location of local
support services.

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER PRIMARY FUNCTIONS

When an Emergency Operations Center is activated, there are two parallel teams
working at the same time. The containment team works to stop the spread of
damage. The recovery team works to restore a basic level of business service. One
team has all the resources initially, while the other may start with a single person.
As the disaster progresses, the personnel gradually shift to the other team.

Containment Team

A containment team is formed as soon as the disaster is called. The members
begin work immediately to minimize damage from the disaster. This might
involve draping large tarps over holes in the walls to keep the rain out; it might
involve pumping water out of the building or even salvaging soggy equipment
from a computer room fire. The containment team quickly establishes a security
cordon around the site and forms the initial damage assessments.

In the beginning, the containment team is the “main effort,” as the early hours
are occupied with minimizing the damage caused by the emergency. This will
consume all your labor resources as you struggle to stop the damage from
spreading. The Emergency Operations Center described in this chapter is primarily
for damage containment.

As the spread of damage is stopped, the containment team will also take steps
to safeguard assets (you don’t need anyone taking any valuables home as “souvenirs
of the great fire”). Sometimes helpful employees might sincerely try to safeguard
their computers by taking them home so as to ensure the data on their hard drives
do not get lost. Whatever their reasoning, nothing can be removed from the site
until cleared by law enforcement authorities, your insurance adjuster, and then by
your security force.

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER 205

Even though the spread of damage has stopped, there is still much work to do.
There are equipment and materials to sift through to determine what is salvageable.
There may be artificial walls to erect (usually canvas or something to protect the
contents), there are rooms to inventory, etc.

Recovery Team

The leader of the recovery team may begin work even while the damage is still
spreading. This team is charged with restoring the facility to a minimal level of
service as quickly as possible. Usually, this begins as a team of one and gradually
gains labor resources as the events come under control.

The recovery team leader contacts the insurance company immediately and
is their primary point of contact. Even as containment activities continue, this
person is scurrying around taking pictures and documenting damage to aid in the
damage assessment and the insurance claims. This person works closely with the
insurance agent to ensure they gather the critical information for filing their
claim. You will need the insurance money to rebuild and need it fast!

The recovery team begins to fill out as soon as the initial damage assessments
are ready. Starting with a small group, they begin the planning of how to return the
damaged area to full service. This might involve shifting the operation to another
location or bringing in replacements for a few pieces of damaged equipment. As
the containment effort winds down, executive management will shift their
attention to the recovery effort and may replace the recovery manager with a
more senior executive. This is normal to monitor the large flow of cash required to
restore a severely damaged facility to service.

Emergency Operations Center Specific Functions

The Emergency Operations Center performs three essential functions. They are to
command, to control, and to communicate. Keep these basics in mind as you
tailor a plan to support your facility. Some functions are listed here for you to
think about, but what you actually need depends upon your own situation. The
best way to find out what your Command Center requires is to run several exercises
based on different types of disasters.

COMMAND A disaster, like any traumatic surprise, is full of chaos. A lot of chaos!
The person in charge of the Emergency Operations Center must make decisions
about containment activities based on very limited amounts of information.
Indecisive people should never be placed in this position. If your Command Center
does not pull all important decision making into it, then you will have small
pockets of people making potentially hazardous and expensive decisions for you.
There will be no vacuum of command, just whether the company’s representative
exercises it or decisions are made by individual employees. This person will set
objectives and priorities and has overall responsibility at the incident or event.

206 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

Disasters never seem to happen the way they are planned for, and this person
must adapt plans as events unfold. When the problem occurs, the first action is to
open the disaster recovery plan to see if that situation is specifically covered. If it
is, then adapt the plan to the situation. If it is not, then develop a short-term
reaction plan based on anything else in the plan that may be close to it.
Emergencies vary according to their circumstances, priorities, and needs.
Disasters are never as clear cut as the recovery plans seem to make them. As the
problem unfolds, decisions must be made that may be different from the
approved recovery plan. Keep in mind the plan is only a guideline and was never
intended to be followed mindlessly.

Command activities include:

➤ Gathering damage assessments.

➤ Developing action plans based on current information.

➤ Assigning scarce resources where they will do the most good at that point in time.

CONTROL Control involves obtaining and dispatching resources based on the
direction of the Emergency Operations Center manager. Control handles all the
administrative duties that are the tools for implementing the directions of
the manager.

Control activities include a wide range of support activities:

➤ Ordering materials from food for the crews to pumps for pumping out flood
water to tarps for covering equipment.

➤ Tracking the recovery effort to ensure all personnel are accounted for at all times.

➤ Implementing the allocation and reallocation of resources as
circumstances require.

➤ Gathering raw information and summarizing it for the manager’s ongoing
damage assessment.

➤ Controlling information about the facility to ensure it is available for all to use
and not letting it be borrowed and lost.

COMMUNICATIONS Communications is the primary tool for the commander to
control resources. Beyond this, the Command Center will also communicate with
the news media, with vendors, with customers, with the community, and with a
wide range of very interested stakeholders. Communications becomes the primary
tool of the leader to mobilize teams toward a specific action. As was noted at the
beginning of this chapter, it takes a radio operator (a communications medium)
to make someone a commanding general.

ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTIONS A primary Emergency Operations Center function
is to receive information about the status of the problem. The first action is to
identify the problem. We’ll use the electrical outage example to illustrate our

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER 207

points. The first information you need to know is what the problem is. The problem
is not that the lights went out. That is a symptom. The problem was a loss of
electrical power. Proper identification of the problem allows you to focus on
solving the problem rather than treating the symptoms.

Here is a list of some of the things that might be needed based on the type and
severity of the problem. A key consideration of the administrative function is to
ensure that records are maintained on what was done, when it was done, and how
money was spent. Otherwise, at a later date, the “armchair quarterbacks,” in their
comfortable, no-pressure surroundings, will begin criticizing your actions.
Administrative records also allow the company to later acknowledge their gratitude
to those who did so much for them during the disaster.

➤ Keep a log of the steps taken toward problem resolution so you can later
conduct an after action: lessons learned.

➤ Keep a list of who was working on the problem and when. A thank-you is in
order later.

➤ Keep track of who is in each repair team and where they are. Use this to ensure
teams are rotated and rested. Tired people make mistakes.

➤ Track expenses: Sometimes we cannot wait for purchasing to issue POs. In the
heat of the moment, money may flow for supplies, but all of that will be
forgotten next month when the bills become due. Keep track of all expenses!

➤ Maintain communications logs for telephone traffic, radio traffic, electronic
mail, and faxes; any message traffic into or out of the Emergency Operations
Center. This enables you to later refer back to who said what, and when.

➤ Ensure the essential human functions of food, water, and rest are addressed.
Cater in food, order plenty of bottled water, and make arrangements with
nearby hotels for the crews to rest. In the cases of being “locked in” your
facility by flood, hurricane, blizzard, etc., this support must be provided from
in-house services.

➤ Carefully track the location of the company’s vital records that are governed by
legal or regulatory agencies. If they must be relocated away from their usual
storage area, a guard may be required.

➤ Maintain a list of injuries and any follow-up actions taken.

➤ Assist in documenting the damage for the insurance adjusters.

➤ Provide material safety data sheets to damage control teams and emergency
service providers.

PREPARING AN EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER

A disaster is not the time to figure out what you need in your Emergency
Operations Center. Careful planning before a disaster will help ensure you have
what you need to get the business back up and running.

208 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

Basic Emergency Operations Center Materials

There are many things that will be required to operate your Emergency
Operations Center facility. Here are some items to consider. The more time and
resources you have, the more you can improve on this basic list.

➤ Electricity. The Emergency Operations Center will need a steady, reliable
supply of electricity. This may mean a portable generator and a UPS battery
system. The size of these units is based on the amount of electricity they will
be called on to provide. Be sure to consult closely with your equipment
suppliers about this.

Before you can size your electrical support units, you must know what
they will need to support in the Emergency Operations Center. Hopefully you
won’t need them, but be prepared for the worst. If in doubt, go for larger units.
Once you start adding copiers, personal computers, cellular telephone
chargers, etc., to the load, you will appreciate the extra capacity.

If you are located in an area that is prone to wide-area disasters, such as
flooding, hurricanes, or earthquakes, then your own emergency power
generation capability is essential and might be required to run for up to a week.

➤ Emergency Lighting. You will need to provide emergency lighting for the
Emergency Operations Center in the event that power is lost and the generator
is not ready yet. Emergency lights are battery operated and come on
automatically when normal lighting is lost. These lights must be installed well in
advance and checked regularly to ensure they will be ready when you need them.

Other forms of emergency lighting are flashlights (keep plenty of batteries
on hand) and light sticks. Both batteries and light sticks lose their potency
over time, and your emergency stock must be replaced at least every other
year. Pack plenty of these away in your Emergency Operations Center supplies
storage closet. Remember that recovery efforts are an “all-out” affair and will
consume supplies around the clock. In a wide-area disaster, it may be some
time before you can obtain additional supplies such as flashlight batteries.

➤ Readily Available Sanitary Facilities. If your Emergency Operations Center is
open for any length of time, then sanitary facilities are essential. If water
pressure is lost, then some sort of external facility must be obtained for the
duration of the emergency.

➤ Medical Kits. It is always useful to keep several medical kits on hand for
medical issues. These kits should be used by trained personnel to apply first
aid until proper medical help arrives. Include blankets to keep patients warm.
In addition to the kits, encourage employee first aid training and make a list of
any trained Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) on your payroll. Many
rural communities make extensive use of volunteer emergency services, and
you should know if any of these trained people are on your staff.

➤ Office Supplies. Every office lives on a steady diet of paperwork and a disaster
is no exception. Ensure there are sufficient materials packaged and stored in

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER 209

your materials closet so you don’t lose time chasing them down in a crisis. As
you detail what you might need to recover and who might need to help, it
becomes obvious what sort of supplies might be needed. Some common
materials required include:

◆ PC workstations and printers, connected to a data network. If necessary,
connect via cellular modems. Notebook PCs make it easy to take the PC to
the work site. Be sure all PCs are preloaded with your standard software. If
your key disaster recovery staff members are issued notebook PCs for use in
their normal work assignment instead of desktop PCs, they can bring them
to the Emergency Operations Center.

◆ Chairs, tables, secure filing cabinets, folding tables, bookcases, and
wastebaskets.

◆ Portable radios and battery chargers.

◆ Telephones, telephone books, fax machines, copiers, paper shredder.

◆ Video cameras and still cameras.

◆ Copies of the business continuity plan.

◆ Local maps, building floor plans.

◆ Basic office supplies, such as pens, paper, staplers, paper clips, tape,
notebooks, and special company forms, checks, postage, etc.

Communications

Communications are critical to focus the maximum effort where it is needed. In
an Emergency Operations Center, this will consume most of your effort. Ideally,
your communications network will allow for rapid discussions with all members
on your team. Emergency Operations Center communications also include
company executives, news services, the public, suppliers, customers, and
other groups.

When reporting the recovery project’s status, be sure that your information is
correct and complete. Make a note documenting who is reporting each information
element that flows into your official management updates. If you pass on someone
else’s bad information, then the integrity of the entire containment and recovery
project will be questioned.

Basic infrastructure needs include:

➤ Telephone. There must be multiple telephone lines into the Emergency
Operations Center. At a minimum, you need one line for incoming calls, one
for outgoing calls, and one for the disaster containment manager. The more
telephone lines in service beyond this minimum, the better the information
will flow. In case the loss of telephone service is the problem, make a list of
who on your staff carries a cellular telephone so the traditional telephone
equipment can be bypassed. If necessary, add external cellular antennas to

210 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

the roof of the building to ensure a clear signal. Note that in a wide-area
disaster, the cellular telephone network may quickly become overloaded.

➤ Radio Communications. It is essential to maintain contact with work crews in
the field. If the problem is with a data hub in a closet on the 22nd floor, there
is probably not a telephone connected in the closet. However, if the repair
technicians carry a radio, then this problem is solved. Your security force
normally already has a radio network in place for communications within the
facility. If your location is remote and prone to wide-area disasters, such as
flooding, you might also want a shortwave radio to maintain contact with
emergency services in your area. Be aware that radio communications can be
intercepted and interrupted by third parties. As such, it is not a good medium
for passing sensitive information.

➤ Data Communications. Data communications are essential for communicating
with other sites and systems. In addition, it provides an e-mail pipeline for
publishing press releases on recovery progress.

➤ Web Site. A Web site can be a valuable tool to communicate with employees
and the public. Be sure to use lightweight pages that are quick to load and easy
to update. Keep the information current and the tone compassionate.

➤ Messengers. Messengers are sometimes a vital communications link when
the amount of information is large and it is already written down. It is also a
more private way to communicate information that should not be sent over
the public radio waves.

➤ Television and AM/FM Radios. It sometimes helps to hear what the rest of the
world is hearing about your problem. In addition, if this is a wide-area disaster,
such as a blizzard or hurricane, then there may be important public
announcements broadcast over the television and radio.

Information flow is critical every step of the way. Ensure you are using the
appropriate communication channel when communicating with stakeholders.

➤ To contact management and request people, equipment, tools, material and
money, use regular voice communications such as direct or conference
telephone calls. To provide management updates, use periodic updates via
e-mail or voice mail box. This should be a different voice mail box than the
one for all employees.

➤ To employees not present at the recovery site and their families, use a voice mail
box or Web site with regularly updated announcements. Be sure the telephone
number or Web site address is widely published before an emergency occurs.

➤ To apprise customers of the status of their orders, try to call each one
individually to assure them about the shipment or to advise them of the
estimated delay. If there isn’t sufficient time or telephone lines available to call
them individually, consider a “fax or e-mail blast” to broadcast the same
message to everyone.

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER 211

➤ To let the public and news media know what is happening with the recovery
effort, get your message out via e-mail, fax, and onsite interviews. If things are
going well, this is a chance to showcase the management expertise of your
company. Public messaging Web sites such as Twitter can also be useful for
getting basic status information out to a large number of people efficiently.

➤ To the people working on the recovery, use a large whiteboard with the status
of the various efforts. Choose your words carefully.

➤ To notify suppliers, materials managers must have telephone access. Let
suppliers know to hold shipments if appropriate or to assure other suppliers
that you still need their goods on time.

➤ To insurance companies, use telephones. They will want to know immediately
of disasters, as they may want to send in their own damage assessors before
any cleanup effort begins.

Ignorance flourishes in the absence of truth. Time must be spent ensuring
that factual information concerning the scope of any disaster is properly
communicated. Your corporate communications staff must handle all
communications external to the facility (especially to public news services). An
ambiguously worded announcement can do more damage than no news at all.

To maintain a flow of information to employees who are not on the site,
establish a password-protected Web site and post updates on the progress of the
recovery. It should include information on the type of emergency, locations, time
of occurrence, injuries, extent of damage, possible cause, and what action is being
taken. These people are worried about their coworkers and their ongoing
employment. Keep them on your side by updating this message often. The best
way to make this work is to use this Web site for routine company announcements
on a regular basis. Then when a disaster strikes, everyone knows where to turn
for information.

If you set the standard of publishing regular updates, then the calls from
executives will be fewer. If you force management to call for updates, then the
staff will waste a lot of time responding to the same questions repeatedly. Try to
stick to a containment and recovery progress announcement schedule even if
there is nothing new to report.

An Emergency Operations Center needs a few basic items to efficiently channel
information in and out. Things to think about include:

➤ Status Board. Rather than field many of the same questions repeatedly, set up
at least one large marker board. Marker boards make great temporary posters
for sharing information of interest with a wide range of people. A marker
board reduces calls to people doing the work asking, “Are we there yet?” If your
small children have ever repeatedly nagged you during a car trip with “Are we
there yet?” then you can imagine what it is like for workers laboring through a
problem to be interrupted and inundated with progress report requests from
a wide range of people. Post the progress on this board and refer all inquires to it.

212 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

A status board is invaluable for seeing the “big picture” of what is happening
and how the recovery is unfolding. Some of the things you may want to post
on your recovery progress board are:

◆ An updated status of the recovery.

◆ The name of the current recovery manager on watch.

◆ Any important upcoming activities.

◆ Key telephone numbers.

Decisions are made and actions are taken based on information provided
by everyone on the recovery team. It is important that this information be
complete and accurate. When using a status board, only the clerk assigned to
update the board should write on it. Inaccurate information may lead to
major delays or costly mistakes. The clerk controlling the status board should
log the origin of every piece of information used to update the board.

If practical, use two status boards. The one in the Emergency Operations
Center is for keeping track of fast-moving details. The one posted outside of
the Emergency Operations Center is to inform whoever walks up of the progress
of the recovery effort and is a tool to reduce casual demands for information.

➤ Inbound Communications. The purpose of the Emergency Operations
Center is to command, and the key to commanding is communications. Using
telephones, radios, e-mail, fax machines, and any other communication tools
at hand, information will pour into the center. It is important that every
inbound communication be logged and identified with a number (usually
based on a date/time stamp). This will make it easier to later track back to see
who said what, and when.

Inbound communications might include such things as:

◆ Work crews reporting the status of their recovery efforts.

◆ Requests for tools, specific people, or skills from work crews.

◆ Current locations of crews.

◆ Status of inbound materials to aid in the recovery.

◆ Inquiries from the local news services.

◆ Offers of help.

◆ Questions by the police and fire department.

◆ Injury reports.

➤ Outbound Communications. A large recovery effort will generate a steady
stream of outbound messages to a wide range of stakeholders:

◆ Status updates to executives. Keep them informed or they will show up
asking questions.

◆ Public Relations spokespersons. They need the facts in case the disaster is
considered a public event.

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER 213

◆ Suppliers. They need to know if they should hold shipments, or even turn
around loads on the road.

◆ Customers. They need to know if their goods will still arrive on time,
especially if this facility provides just-in-time service to another company.
If you are a just-in-time supplier, then it is crucial that you must maintain a
steady flow of recovery progress reports to your customers.

Emergency Operations Center Security

It is nice to have a lot of help, but too many curious people will just get in the way.
If someone is not assigned to the Emergency Operations Center staff, they should
not be there except by invitation. This isn’t intended to cover up anything or to
keep the truth from anyone. It will cut down on the casual questions and well-
intended actions that interfere with work.

Assign someone to oversee (and keep under control) visitors to your site.
Visitors should have a comfortable place nearby to congregate and to be briefed
on progress. These people might be a valuable labor resource to draw from as the
recovery progresses. As employees show up to volunteer their services, log them
in and note their departments and the areas in which they normally work.

The primary source of identification during a disaster is your company ID
card. If possible, hand the responsibility for the Emergency Operations Center
and recovery work site security over to your facility security force. If you do not
already have a company security force, then you should arrange an on-call support
agreement with a local firm. With a standing agreement, this reduces their
response time to your site and frees your staff to concentrate on the recovery.

Beware of people walking through your area looking for some loot to take
home. It is prudent to limit the number of access points at a recovery site. Nothing
should leave without a materials pass. Remember that a flash drive or CD full of
customer information is easily picked up and fits neatly in a thief’s pocket.

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER STAFFING

It is important to identify the Emergency Operations Center staff well in advance
of a disaster. They need to know to automatically head for the Emergency
Operations Center when a disaster occurs. There is no time to go looking for them.
To facilitate this process, periodic recovery Emergency Operations Center staff
exercises should be held. If you practice it, you’ll better understand what to do at
a time when your thoughts are distracted by the emergency and concern for others.

Who should be in the Emergency Operations Center? The number one person
is the Disaster Containment Manager. This person is like an orchestra conductor
who keeps everyone focused on the task at hand. There can only be one boss, and
that boss should have a direct communications pipeline to the top executives. If
some well-meaning vice president comes onsite, he or she deserves a briefing on
containment and recovery efforts but should not be allowed to begin issuing

214 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

orders. The caveat to this is if they are advising on their own area of responsibility;
then, their advice is valuable and should be seriously considered.

The company must decide in advance who the Disaster Containment
Manager will be and what authority that manager will have. Because a disaster
can happen to any part of the business, this should be a senior executive who has
broad experience in the company. In a crisis, it must be someone who can be
spared from his or her regular job for up to several weeks to focus exclusively on
disaster containment and recovery. This person must be authorized to spend
money on the spur of the moment to bring in emergency assistance and materials
without lengthy consultations with top management. Given this description, a
company is wise to identify this person in advance and ensure the person is
intimately involved with the facility’s disaster recovery and mitigation planning.
The greater this manager’s prestige in the company, the greater the support will be
for your mitigation, training, and testing programs.

Declaring a disaster invokes a prewritten directive identifying the Disaster
Containment Manager and placing the manager under the direct control of the
top company executive until relieved. Such a directive must be prepared in
advance and distributed to all company officers. It is issued by the Disaster
Containment Manager when activating the Emergency Operations Center. This
action eliminates confusion among the employees. Typically, this prewritten
declaration is intended to authorize prompt action for the first 24 hours or until
the top executive decides to appoint someone else or to reaffirm it as ongoing
through the recovery period.

An important staffing consideration is for every person to have a
predesignated and trained backup. Every effort must be made to cross-train the
staff on the other functions of the recovery effort. Remember that your
Emergency Operations Center will quite likely be tasked to run around the clock
to speed the recovery. If you are only “one deep” in job skills, that person will
quickly burn out. Everyone in the Emergency Operations Center must be
prepared to wear several hats at once.

A recovery staff “rest plan” should be in effect for around-the-clock efforts. A
rest plan ensures that recovery teams are rotated regularly to allow for rest. Team
members on their rest break should sleep or otherwise rest their minds and bodies.
They should not assist in other recovery activity. Tired people make mistakes and
get hurt.

Disaster Containment Manager Responsibilities

The Disaster Containment Manager is responsible for protecting and preserving
the company’s assets and resources. The manager has the dual role to ensure the
impact of a disaster is minimized and to begin recovery operations. This position
is most crucial during the first few hours of the recovery. As the containment
phase passes into a recovery phase, this person may be replaced by one of the
company executives to oversee rebuilding the damage areas.

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER 215

The Disaster Containment Manager makes the tough decisions, sets the
recovery effort objectives, directs staff toward priorities, and keeps the recovery
team focused. The manager is also your primary contact with public emergency
services on the disaster site. These organizations (fire, police, and government
agencies) are legally mandated to control the site, safeguard lives, contain the
incident, and preserve any criminal evidence. By working closely with these
organizations, the manager can determine which parts of the site can be entered
and addressed at that point in time. They can also pull together a damage
assessment and begin recovery planning.

Disaster Containment Manager responsibilities include:

➤ Declaring that a disaster exists and identifying which outside assistance is
required. This includes the need to activate an off-site data center. Note that
this declaration to an off-site data center service provider incurs a major cost
as soon as this call is made.

➤ Coordinating with any emergency services onsite to gain access to the site as
soon as possible.

➤ Making an initial damage assessment and beginning planning for emergency
containment. As the event unfolds, the manager updates the damage
assessment and uses that as the basis for all future recovery actions.

➤ Selecting a site for the Emergency Operations Center by determining if the
primary site is suitable, if the backup site must be activated, or if there is an
opportunity to set up an Operations Center very close to the disaster.

➤ Activating the disaster recovery teams, assigning people to either business
continuity or business recovery efforts.

➤ Personally ensuring that adequate personnel safeguards are in place.

➤ Assigning staff to maintain a 24-hour schedule for containment and recovery.
Drafting and enforcing a rest plan.

➤ Maintaining the official status of the recovery for executive management.

➤ Coordinating incoming material with the materials receiving staff.

➤ Coordinating use of skilled trades with the facility engineering management
such as for contract labor, electricians, welders, and millwrights.

➤ Assessing personnel strengths and weaknesses in terms of knowledge, skill,
and performance to balance labor expertise and staffing.

➤ Watching for signs of excessive stress and fatigue. Even exceptionally good
performers grow tired and reach a point where they no longer can think
clearly and are prone to serious error.

➤ Identifying “at-risk” employees, that is, those deeply affected by traumatic
stress. Moving them to a safe environment under the care of counselors or
friends, and assessing the need for professional intervention.

➤ Designating a backup person to assume the Disaster Containment Manager’s
role while they are resting or not on the disaster site.

216 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

Facility Engineering Manager Responsibilities

The Facility Engineering Manager’s responsibilities include:

➤ Ensuring floor plans are current as to electrical, data network, fire, and
environmental considerations, and that copies are maintained both in the
Emergency Operations Center and in the off-site vital records storage facility.

➤ Prearranging for on-call contract skilled labor to supplement the facilities
repair staff and to fill in any gaps in expertise.

➤ Ensuring the facility’s safety alarms and emergency lights are in good working
order through periodic testing.

➤ Restoring utilities—electrical, water, sewage, telecommunications, and
HVAC—as soon as possible.

Other Essential Emergency Operations Center Staff Members

Everyone in the company can play an important role in helping the firm recover
from a disaster. This includes:

➤ Purchasing Agent. The purchasing agent must have the authority to spend
whatever funds are necessary to assist in the immediate containment and
recovery effort. The purchasing buyer will need a checkbook for situations
where a purchase order is not appropriate. Some companies also use a
company credit card for this function. The purchasing agent is responsible for
tracking the expenses incurred during the containment and recovery.

➤ Public Relations Coordinator. This person controls all official announcements
concerning the disaster. This person is critical if injuries have been suffered by
anyone during the disaster. Accidents can also occur during recovery, so this
person must be fully aware of what is happening so that a minimal but truthful
statement can be issued to the press.

➤ Human Resources Manager. This manager makes the decisions on personnel
issues that are consistent with company policy. This person will probably be
the one who calls in emergency staff from home and deals with employees
who refuse to assist in the after-hours recovery. The Human Resources
Manager is also the one who can send people home (with or without pay
according to your company’s disaster guidelines). They ensure that employee
engineering and skilled trades skill assessments are up to date.

➤ Security Manager. This person will be fully occupied securing the disaster site
to prevent material from being stolen. If you do not have one, then appoint
someone to this important post and hire a security service to safeguard
your equipment.

➤ Safety Person. This person is very concerned that anyone entering or exiting
the damaged area is accounted for on the status board and provided with the
proper safety devices. The safety person briefs the teams on safety issues
before they enter the disaster area and debriefs them after they come out (to
learn if there are any new hazards).

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER 217

➤ Materials Manager. You will need someone to contact all inbound materials
shipments and have them held at the terminal or redirected to a warehouse
for temporary storage. Shipments that have not left the suppliers’ dock may
be canceled. This person should be skilled at traffic management for expediting
shipments of emergency supplies.

➤ Sales Manager. This manager needs to get on the telephone to critical customers
and keep them apprised as to the viability of their orders. Customers may see
a splashy news report that sounds like your facility has been flattened when in
reality all you lost were a few offices. Timely calls will prevent nervous people
from canceling orders at a point when a continuous flow of business is
very important.

➤ Facilities Engineer. If there was any structural damage, no one should enter
the building without engineering approval. If heavy equipment is needed to
move debris, this person will be very busy directing that operation.

➤ Data Processing Support Manager. Needed for the operations center and the
recovery effort.

➤ Medical Director. Needed if you have an in-house medical staff.

➤ Vital Records Manager. This person provides advice for recovering vital
records or safeguarding undamaged records.

As time moves on, don’t forget to reach out and request help from your vendors.
Just as you will “go the extra mile” for your customers, so will they for your future
business. As you make emergency material orders, bring their sales representatives
onsite for advice. They may even send over technical experts to help you recover.
After all, if you don’t recover well, then you won’t be a very good customer in the
future. However, your vendors will not know you are having a problem unless you
tell them!

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER:
WHEN A DISASTER STRIKES

Now that your Emergency Operations Center plan is ready, what do you do when
an emergency strikes? It takes time to bring together the proper people to begin
addressing the problem. This time gap between when the disaster strikes and
when the disaster recovery team is assembled is a critical time during which
events must not be allowed to take their own course. When a disaster strikes, the
Disaster Recovery Manager must take immediate and decisive steps to protect
people and property. This prompt action buys time to organize a proper reaction.
Drilling the Disaster Recovery Manager and his team during disaster plan testing
will make this an automatic process.

When the problem strikes, you have three major actions to accomplish at the
same time. These may occur in rapid succession and overlap. In an emergency
there will be massive chaos, so be prepared! Your three initial actions are to protect

218 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

human life, to contain the damage, and to communicate with management and
fellow employees.

Protect Life

Your first action is to provide for the safety of all employees, visitors, and
bystanders—everyone! Work in the area of the disaster stops, and people are
evacuated while an assessment is made. This can be expensive but is a very wise
precaution. If, for example, this is a 10-story building and there is a fire on the
second floor, everyone on the floors above needs to get out in case the fire climbs
higher and to avoid smoke inhalation. Everyone on the floors below must leave
due to water damage (from the fire hoses) and to avoid the potential of a building
collapse (full or partial). By evacuating everyone, you can account for who is
missing and may need to be rescued inside. You can also identify which managers
and supervisors are onsite and ask them to keep their staffs together. You may
need their help in the immediate recovery efforts.

Predesignate rendezvous areas by department. Someone (or several people)
should be assigned as assembly area leaders whose job it is to account for everyone.
They will need a roster of all active employees to check off names. Many companies
identify the rendezvous points by attaching signs on the parking lot light posts.
People need to know where to go!

To signal an evacuation, use an in-building page to alert everyone. In a noisy
factory, you may need to set off the fire alarm—even if the problem is not a fire—
just to get their attention. The important thing is to get everyone out safely with a
minimum of panic. It is better to use a prearranged signal but in an emergency
you must use whatever is at hand.

Besides a fire, you might need to evacuate due to a toxic material leak, a sudden
structural problem, or even someone waving a gun around in an office. There are
many reasons why this might be necessary. Everyone must know what an evacuation
alarm sounds like and what to do when it goes off.

Contain the Damage

Once everyone is out, a quick assessment can be made to determine the extent of
the damage. How this assessment is done depends on the nature of the problem.
The first action is to call for help. If there is a fire, call for the fire department. If it
is a toxic leak, activate your environmental hazard containment team (you should
have one if you keep toxic material onsite). The on-scene manager must be sure
the call gets through and must not delegate this important task without following up.

Next, notify top management of the situation. If this is a weekday, executives
may already be there. However, if this is a Saturday night and you just evacuated
the building, then they need to be tracked down and told. This is not a time to be
a go-it-alone hero. You need their support for the immediate recovery steps.

Determine if there is anything you can safely do to contain the damage. This is
a judgment call. If everyone is out of the building and accounted for, then you might

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER 219

want to await emergency support. If anyone is missing, try to determine where they
may have been in the building so this information can be passed on to the rescue
crews. They have the equipment to go in there and you do not. If the building has
structural damage, do not reenter it without the clearance of a structural engineer.

As you work to contain the damage, you need to establish security around the
building. Chaos is a momentary opportunity for a thief to snatch and run, so try
to identify anything leaving the building and who has it. Use your idle employees
to assist your security team. Ask for volunteers. Make a list of who is helping with
this before they move out.

Communicate

For the first few moments, people will tend to follow whoever seems to be in
charge and knows what to do. In times of crises, leaders tend to emerge.
Unfortunately, some of these will be misguided and could tend to pull people in
the wrong direction. So after the previously mentioned actions are taken, get an
announcement to every assembly point that:

➤ Briefly describes the problem. Don’t speculate. If you don’t know, say so.

➤ Tells them what actions you need from them. If the problem appears severe
and it is close to quitting time, ask the assembly point leaders to account for
everyone. If you know whom you need to stay and help or if you want to ask
for volunteers, do so now. Send the rest of the people home. Keep all the
department managers onsite so they can better understand if they should call
their people to cancel work for the next day.

Keep the executives informed with hourly status reports. The hourly status
report should include:

1. Assessment of the extent of the damage.

2. List of what is needed to recover the site in people, data, hardware, and software.

3. The decision to recover onsite or at the alternate site.

4. Keeping everyone informed of the situation. Use the Public Relations
department as a spokesperson for all external contacts.

5. Activating the Emergency Operations Center and assembling the recovery team.

6. Requesting priority on purchasing support from the facility’s accounting manager.

CONCLUSION

The goal of the Emergency Operations Center is to help return the business to
normal as quickly as possible. While you can’t eliminate the damage to your business
from a disaster, a well-designed plan for managing the recovery will dramatically
reduce your recovery time and speed the return to business as usual. As with most
management functions, communications is the key to the commander
controlling the situation and leading the recovery to a successful conclusion.

220 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

C H A P T E R 1 1

PANDEMIC PLAN

Epidemics have often been more influential than statesmen and
soldiers in shaping the course of political history,

and diseases may also color the moods of civilizations.
—Anonymous

INTRODUCTION

Up to this point, every plan has been based on an incident that adversely affected
the operation of a company process—or even the company itself. These events
triggered activation of the incident response plan. With work and a bit of luck, the
incident’s impact was quickly minimized and the company moved on.

A pandemic requires a very different type of plan. It fits under business
continuity planning as a disruption of the flow of business. Unlike the sharp
suddenness of a disaster, a pandemic may appear gradually and then run for
several months or even years. The disease follows its favorite season around the
globe and ends up again on your doorstep—often more virulent than before.

A pandemic refers to an infectious disease that is spread by contact with
people. Therefore, minimizing contact with people is essential. This might be
between employees, as well as between employees and customers. For some
businesses, this is not a problem. For others that depend on face-to-face

customer

contact, it requires a well-considered plan to minimize contact and to sanitize areas.

A pandemic affects more than people. It can change the demand for the goods
and services offered by your company. If your services are offered person to person,
it might reduce demand, as people seek to minimize personal contact. Are your
products something that are used as people interact? Are they something used at
home where people may shelter their families from others? Do your products
provide something to ease the pandemic such as improved personal sanitation or
face masks?

PANDEMIC PLAN 179

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Disease has always been part of human history. Pandemics of differing
severities occur several times each century. A seasonal flu outbreak is not a
pandemic, even if widespread. Each pandemic is unique.

WHAT IS A PANDEMIC?

A pandemic is an infectious disease that strikes a significant portion of a population
over a wide area, often over continents. The disease must be infectious (you catch
it from other people). It must be widespread and not a local outbreak. This is
different from an epidemic, in which there are significantly more cases of a
particular disease among a specific group of people over a period of time. Figure
11-1 lists the differences between a normal seasonal flu and a flu pandemic.

At any given time, a number of pandemics for various diseases are declared.
For example, HIV/AIDS is an infectious disease that spreads from person-to-
person contact and reaches across continents. However, avoiding risky behaviors
makes this less of a business concern. Many of the current pandemics are limited
to a particular climate zone, such as the tropics.

Some health issues are not infectious, even though they can disrupt your
business. For example, Legionnaire’s Disease (caused by the legionella bacterium) is
not passed person to person, but can disrupt business and dampen travel to an area.

Pandemics strain the local healthcare system. Hospitals, clinics, and other
healthcare organizations are not staffed for peak demand. We take for granted
their availability in case we need them. However, a large number of cases pouring
into them in a short time may mean that treatment for ill employees is only
provided to the most serious cases.

The Spanish Influenza pandemic in the early twentieth century is the catastrophe
against which all modern pandemics are measured. It is estimated that
approximately 20 to 40 percent of the worldwide population became ill and that
more than 20 million people died. Between September 1918 and April 1919,
approximately 500,000 deaths from the flu occurred in the United States alone.
Many people died very quickly. Some people who felt well in the morning
became sick by noon, and were dead by nightfall. Those who did not succumb
to the disease within the first few days often died of complications from the flu
(such as pneumonia) caused by bacteria.

One of the most unusual aspects of the Spanish flu was its ability to kill young
adults. The reasons for this remain uncertain. With the Spanish flu, mortality
rates were high among healthy adults as well as the usual high-risk groups. The
attack rate and mortality was highest among adults 20 to 50 years old. The
severity of that virus has not been seen again.

http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/pandemics/flu3.htm#9

180 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

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http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/pandemics/flu3.htm#9

ulFcimednaPulFlanosaeS

Outbreaks follow predictable
seasonal patterns; occurs annually,
usually in winter

Occurs rarely (three times in 20th
century—last in 1968)

People may have some immunity
because of previous exposure

No previous exposure; little or no
preexisting immunity

Healthy adults usually not at risk for
serious complications; the very
young, the elderly, and those with
certain underlying health conditions
are at increased risk for
serious complications

Healthy people may be at increased
risk for serious complications

Health system doctors and hospitals
can usually meet public and
patient needs

Health system likely will
be overwhelmed

Vaccine developed based on known
flu virus strains and available for
annual flu season

Vaccine probably would not be
available in the early stages of
a pandemic

Adequate supplies of antiviral
medications are usually available

Effective antiviral medications may
be in limited supply

Average U.S. deaths about
36,000 annually

Number of deaths could be quite
high (e.g., U.S. 1918 death toll was
approximately 500,000)

Symptoms: fever, cough, runny nose,
muscle pain; deaths often caused by
complications, such as pneumonia

Symptoms may be more severe and
complications more frequent

Generally causes modest impact on
society (e.g., some school closing,
encouragement of people who are
sick to stay home)

May cause major impact on society
(e.g., widespread restrictions on
travel, closings of schools and
businesses, cancellation of large
public gatherings)

Manageable impact on domestic and
world economy

Potential for severe impact on
domestic and world economy

FIGURE 11-1: Seasonal flu vs. pandemic flu.

Source: http://www.odh.ohio.gov/ASSETS/652D0F0FDDF64B40BE6834674214C25F/
SeasonalVSPandemic Co

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http://www.odh.ohio.gov/ASSETS/652D0F0FDDF64B40BE6834674214C25F/SeasonalVSPandemic

WRITING A PLAN

The first step is to appoint a Pandemic Plan Administrator. Because this is primarily
a health issue, the Pandemic Plan Administrator is usually a staff member with a
medical background. If the company lacks someone with these qualifications,
then appoint a business leader. Pandemic issues involve Human Resources and
Facilities management so either might be suitable.

Define the roles and responsibilities of the Pandemic Administrator in a job
description. This includes details concerning planning, testing, and preparing for
a rapid response to a pandemic.

Included on the CD attached to this book is a sample Pandemic Management Plan
(Form 11-1). This sample plan is only a starting point. Customize it to meet your
own company requirements. For instance, there are example risk assessments
and restoration priority charts which you must replace with your own information
developed in other chapters.

Round Up a Team

Writing a plan is a team effort. Anyone who is expected to execute the plan should
be involved in its creation. The Pandemic Administrator will require close assistance
from the company’s Human Resource Manager, IT Manager, and Facilities
Manager. If your company has multiple sites that are far apart, you may want a
different team for each location. Dispersed sites provide the potential that some
locations may only be lightly affected. Your company may also consider hiring a
local healthcare adviser to assist the planning team.

In addition, consider including:

➤ Business managers responsible for areas containing vital business functions.

➤ Union officials, if the company uses represented labor.

➤ Critical suppliers and long-term contracted labor.

➤ Logistics providers.

Tie the Plan to the BIA

As always, anchor your plan on supporting the company’s vital business functions
identified in the BIA. A primary business complication of a pandemic is extensive
employee absence. If workforce attendance is low, you may need to choose
between which functions will be done and which must wait. Prioritize company
activities based on the highest value BIA processes. At the height of an influenza
pandemic, employee absenteeism (for all reasons) may reach as high as 40%.

Unlike the sharp and comparative short-term impact of a disaster, a pandemic
may last 18 months or more. Sometimes an employee is ill; sometimes it is an

182 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

employee’s family member. Also, the priority list of vital business functions may
shift as one function is fully staffed and one with less urgency suddenly acquires
urgency. For example, shifting staff to assemble goods in a factory may be a first
priority, but then you need to shift the team to the shipping department to move
the goods out the door.

Review Contractual Obligations

Make a list of each contractual obligation. Add them to your risk assessment.
Some contracts contain penalty clauses if promised products are not delivered.
Preparing for a pandemic and taking steps to minimize its impact must be
completed before claiming that the failure to fulfill a delivery is beyond your control.

PANDEMIC RISK ASSESSMENT

Based on your BIA, evaluate the challenges specific to your company from a
pandemic. One concern is extended absences of workforce or key personnel.
However, are your revenues dependent on people-to-people contact? (Who
knows what germs are on the credit card handed over by a customer?) Determine
the impact of a pandemic on different product lines and/or production sites. Do
your company’s products or services depend on crowds? For example, consider a
hotel adjacent to a convention center. If people avoid crowds, then convention
attendance will be low and food service demand will be diminished. Contrast this
to a factory with little direct customer contact.

Risk management identifies the potential interruption to continued
performance of essential functions, the degree of its impact, and strategies to
mitigate those risks. Gather the pandemic planning team and perform a risk
analysis on how a pandemic might impact your business operations. Refer to
Figure 11-2 and the list below for an example of a pandemic risk assessment.

➤ Employee-to-employee contact. How close to one another do company
employees work? If it is elbow to elbow or face to face, then the risk of infection
is high. If they sit in isolated cubicles all day long, then their contact with
others is much less.

➤ Employee-to-customer contact. Salespeople deal directly with their customers.
Close contact is essential. Basic courtesies and business rituals, such as shaking
hands, may put the sales team at risk. Other examples of risky professions are
security guards, cashiers, and taxi drivers.

➤ Contact with infected items. Do customers use your product and then return
it? Do you work in a hotel where items that have been in contact with people
are collected? Are you an airline baggage handler or even an accounts
receivable clerk handling checks?

➤ Contact from travel. Airplanes are stuffed with coughing strangers and the
swirl of germs in the cabin is enough to make anyone sick.

PANDEMIC PLAN 183

➤ Impact on raw materials. You may be fine, but what if the population around
a key supplier is hard hit?

➤ Impact on customer demand. What if your product depends on crowds—the
very thing that people are avoiding?

Companies are typically in multiple lines of business. Each must be evaluated
for the impact of a pandemic (reduced employee attendance, potential supplier
disruption, etc.). A good example is a contract to deliver materials to a customer
as a just-in-time company. In this situation, a failure to deliver the agreed

materials

at the agreed time may trigger financial penalties.

Suppliers may also be an issue. Most products are assembled from many
components. If any one of these is missing, then a larger product may not be

184 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

Product Process Likelihood Impact Mitigation

Employee-
to-

employee

contact

X 4 4 Increased
sanitation,

generous sick
leave, work from

home

Employee-
to-customer

contact

X 7 8 Increased
sanitation

Contact
with

infected
items

X 4 5 Increased
sanitation on

items returned
or handled by a

customer

Contact
from travel

X 8 7 Stay home and
use

teleconferencing

Impact on
raw

materials

X 2 8 Monitor key
supplier Web
sites, monitor
outbreak areas

Impact on
customer
demand

X 2 2 Minimal impact

FIGURE 11-2: Pandemic risk assessment.

assembled. We live in a global economy and materials may come from a foreign
source. If that area of the globe is particularly hard hit, the local companies may
not be able to provide the necessary materials. The borders may also be temporarily
closed to slow the spread of infection.

Understand the Threat

Consider the various scenarios that may occur. A severe outbreak may occur in
your area, in your target market area, or in a key supplier area. Could a government-
ordered quarantine on the movement of people or large assemblies impact your
business? Will any situation you can foresee change the demand for your product—
or will the pandemic become a business opportunity?

During the height of the annual influenza season, schools will sometimes close for
several days. This breaks the infection cycle. With a two-day incubation, people
can now be treated so that they do not infect others. This also gives schools time
to sanitize all common surfaces. However, some of your employees will stay
home to watch their children until the schools reopen.

Pandemic Techniques

There are four actions that your pandemic plan must include. Each action will
have its own section in your plan.

➤ Social Distancing. Infectious disease is spread by person-to-person contact.
The farther apart people are, the less likely it is that they can pass germs
to others.

➤ Sanitation. People touch many things, such as banisters, doorknobs, vending
machine buttons, etc. These must be properly cleaned at least daily to reduce
the passing of germs through touch.

➤ Communications. Keep your workforce and the public informed about the
pandemic, explaining what each individual should do and what the company
is doing about it.

➤ Timing. Know when to activate your pandemic plan and when to close it down.

The Politics of Pandemics

Governments are caught in a bind. If they do nothing and disease rages out of
control, then they are “idle.” If they vigorously attack the problem, they are
“alarmist.” Further complicating this are politicians who seek to create a crisis so
they can be seen as “solving” it.

PANDEMIC PLAN 185

Another aspect is money. In a “crisis,” money flows into public health
organizations, but a pandemic really opens the flow of money. Over the coming
years, expect to hear the term “pandemic” more and more often. The World
Health Organization’s designation of a disease as “pandemic” focuses on its
global nature rather than on its severity. The H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic was
declared when the disease spread from North America to Australia.

THE PLAN

At some point, it is time to put pen to paper. With the team well in hand, create a
written plan for your company to execute when a pandemic is declared. As the
plan develops, try minitests to validate each component and identify additional
planning requirements.

Although a pandemic plan is different from other incident management plans,
it should still follow the same format. State the problem (which you can refer to
for events not covered by the plan), state actions to take (just guidance because each
situation is unique), and assign tasks to different functional areas or team members.

Triggering the Plan

Pandemics have a beginning and an end. Identify the action that will trigger your
plan. This usually depends on how dispersed your company sites are. For example,
a nationwide retail chain of stores, warehouses, and regional offices might trigger
its plan based on a declaration of a pandemic by the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov). Companies whose operations, suppliers,
and customers are located within a single geographic region (such as a restaurant
chain) might trigger their plans based on their state’s department of health’s
determination.

Large companies generally follow the six phases of a pandemic as published
by the World Health Organization (www.who.int). This is because their operations
are dispersed, they participate in international markets, and employees often travel
internationally. The six phases of an influenza pandemic as described by WHO are:

➤ Phase I. Influenza circulates among animals, with no human infections.

➤ Phase II. Animal influenza infects humans.

➤ Phase III. Limited human-to-human transmission.

➤ Phase IV. Community-level outbreaks indicating a significant increase in the
risk of a pandemic.

➤ Phase V. Human-to-human spread between two countries in the same
region—a pandemic is imminent.

➤ Phase VI. Community-level outbreak in a different region—a global pandemic
is under way.

186 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

www.cdc.gov

www.who.int

As the number of cases decreases, the time will come to deactivate your
pandemic plan. Monitor the same service that you used to start your pandemic
plan for a sign that it can be ended. If you have widely dispersed sites, then each
area will end its pandemic emergency based on the local situation.

Find the Latest Information

Identify local sources of information on infections in your area. This might be the
state or county department of health. Document these sources so their location is
well known to the team. Check with these sources frequently to see how the
pandemic threat is emerging in your operating areas.

Local sources will also provide information about the availability of
immunizations. Pass this on to employees and encourage them to immunize
themselves and their families. Some examples of resources include:

➤ U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – www.cdc.gov

➤ WHO – www.who.int/en/

➤ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – www.HHS.gov

➤ State sites, such as Ohio’s at www.odh.ohio.gov/

An example of local information can be found on this Franklin County, Ohio, Web
site: http://www.columbuspandemicflu.org/.

THE PANDEMIC BUSINESS CLIMATE

Will a pandemic be an opportunity for your business? For example, demand may
increase if you make hand sanitizer or sell entertainment products used at home
(since people may avoid crowds). Other examples might be videoconferencing
companies or telephone companies that rent telephone conference numbers (as
people seek to avoid crowded transportation).

The opposite of this would be if the pandemic damaged your business. To
avoid crowds, people may avoid concerts, the beach, restaurants, malls, schools,
casinos, movie theaters, or other entertainment venues. In extreme local pandemics,
such public venues and assemblies may be banned by the government.

You might change the way that you conduct normal business. For example, at
a college graduation, instead of shaking hands with each student, you might smile
and give a “thumbs up” or other positive gesture. Retailers may be sensitive to
handling credit cards or money from someone who looks ill.

Some companies might disperse employee seating to reduce the amount of
direct contact between workers or erect sneeze shields between close-set
workstations. Frequent fliers might prefer to use teleconferencing. Shared
workstations and cash registers should be minimized and equipped with hand
sanitation.

PANDEMIC PLAN 187

www.cdc.gov

www.who.int/en/

www.odh.ohio.gov/

http://www.columbuspandemicflu.org/

www.HHS.gov

COMMUNICATIONS

The company’s Pandemic Administrator will possess more relevant information
about the situation than the workforce. For this information to benefit the
company, it must be shared. How this information is communicated differs
according to the type of workers receiving it. In the end, the greatest coverage
results from the use of multiple communication methods. For example, office
workers sitting in front of computers all day long have constant access to e-mail.
Factory workers or people who move a lot during their work might be easier to
reach through posters and individual copies of information handed to them.

It is important to also communicate with the families of employees. An illness
in their household can spread to the workplace through the worker. Also,
employees may lose work time tending to sick relatives. Therefore anything to
help keep the worker’s family healthy (including inoculations) will pay off in
reduced absence.

COMMUNICATIONS PLAN

Develop a communications plan to ensure that the right information is provided
to the right audience in a format most likely to reach them. Overlapping delivery
approaches is a good practice as when dealing with wide audiences, each individual
has their own way of absorbing information. See Figure 11-3 as an example.

Before It Strikes

The purpose of communicating before the pandemic strikes is to prepare
employees for the coming disruptions. Opening this communication channel
early acquaints everyone with a source of factual information that will be available
for them to check (such as a Web site). Establishing this communication link may
reduce employee fear and anxiety by providing information and explaining
defensive measures that they and their families can take. In the absence of
information from an authoritative source, people’s darkest fears will take control.

As a disease approaches a pandemic state, warnings are posted on the public
health Web sites. Pandemics start in one place and then spread. When a pandemic
is close to being declared, begin an information program for executives and for
the workforce. Company executives will want to know the severity of the pandemic
and how it will impact company operations. As the pandemic progresses, update
this estimate at least monthly. Employees will want specific information on what
the disease is, symptoms to watch for, and preventative steps they should take.
They will also be interested in actions their families should take to minimize the
likelihood or impact of an infection.

Depending on how your company is organized (geographic dispersion, size of
individual sites, degree of person-to-person contact required), you may choose to
use any one of a variety of media. Each has its own advantages:

188 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

Stakeholder Communications Plan

Stakeholder Reports Content Best Format Frequency Delivery

Executive Weekly status Attendance, updated risk
analysis, government
projections

Brief executive staff
meeting

Weekly e-mail

Pandemic
team members

Weekly status Status on key
communications points

Bullet points Weekly e-mail

Employees Weekly update Impact on company, steps
to take at work and at home

Company newsletter,
bulletin board postings,
team meetings

Weekly Web site posting
and team
meetings

Customers Semimonthly Steps taken by company

Single page recap of
actions taken

Monthly e-mail and Web
site posting

Suppliers Semimonthly Company status and
requirement forecast

Single page recap of
actions taken
Monthly e-mail and Web
site posting

Company
Sanitation
Team

Weekly Focus areas for regular
cleaning

Team meeting to
announce status and
hear about obstacles

Weekly Team meetings

Employee
families

Weekly Steps to take at home to
reduce the chance of
infection

Narrative and “success”
stories

Biweekly e-mail

FIGURE 11-3: Communications plan.

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➤ Team Meetings. Provide the latest information and are an opportunity to hear
questions and concerns from target audiences.

➤ E-mail Updates. Sometimes are ignored by busy people but provide the same
information to everyone at the same time.

➤ Web sites. Enable people to access as they wish, but they are passive ways to
communicate and are only useful if someone reaches out to it.

➤ Status Reports. Time consuming to prepare and should be targeted narrowly
(e.g., factory floor, factory office, factory supervision would all need succinct
information relevant to them).

➤ Videotaped Reports. Provide visual impact but are not suitable for any fast-
breaking information.

➤ Instructional Videos. Can be used to address proper sanitation during
the pandemic.

➤ Hotlines. Used to answer questions from employees and their families.

Begin monitoring various government Web sites closely. Determine which
ones provide various points of view with minimum redundancy. Some sites will
repeat what is posted on the primary national and international sites. This will
help to narrow the list of sites to monitor.

Do not wait until the pandemic is at its height to purchase materials such as extra
tissues and hand sanitizer. They may be in short supply and the price may be
significantly higher during the threat of a pandemic.

Take advantage of available sources of information. Your health insurance
provider may provide ongoing pandemic mitigation techniques. Arrange for a
local medical consultation to supplement your pandemic plan.

Use your communications to form a partnership with employees for their
better well-being. Begin by explaining the actions being taken by the company,
such as social distancing, additional sanitation, etc. Provide information that
employees can pass on to family members about the pandemic and home treatment
of symptoms.

During the Pandemic

When the pandemic sweeps through a company location, it is time to kick
communications into high gear. People who ignored the earlier information are
suddenly interested in detailed information. It is not unusual to repeat the same
information in different formats.

Encourage healthy habits among employees through posters and e-mails.
These topics may include the most effective way to wash hands, how to cover a

190 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

PANDEMIC PLAN 191

cough, and how to identify flu symptoms. Encourage use of large and airy rooms
instead of small “huddle” rooms for meetings. Installs signs in restrooms showing
the proper way to wash hands.

During the pandemic, the information to publish includes:

➤ What is the disease, and what symptoms should you look for?

➤ An explanation of the different ways infectious diseases spread.

➤ Ideas for minimizing the spread of disease specific to your workplace, such as
how to sanitize your work area, dealing with customer contacts, sharing
objects, etc.

➤ Where to go for inoculations (or provide company-sponsored inoculation
clinics).

➤ Simple actions to minimize contacts that might spread the disease, such as
appropriate hand hygiene, coughing/sneezing etiquette, contingency plans.

➤ Relaxed attendance policies if you feel ill or a family member is ill.

Local Sites to Obtain Immunizations

People have their own opinions about inoculations. Some fear the sting of the
needle. Others object to injecting something into their body whose long-term
effect is unknown. Whatever your opinion, to minimize the potential of significant
absence and the absence of key personnel, promote voluntary inoculation.

Creating vaccines requires time. As a new strain of virus appears, there is a
delay of four months or longer to produce the first doses that may prevent it. In
the beginning, immunizations will be in short supply and restricted to high-risk
groups. Over time, they will become generally available. The Pandemic
Administrator can monitor the situation to be ready to arrange employee
immunizations when the supply allows it.

Prepare employees for the time when inoculations will be generally available.
Promote the value of these immunizations through your company communications.
To minimize liability, coordinate with a nearby healthcare provider to provide the
inoculations. People like free things, and they appreciate free things that are
convenient. Arranging for a nearby facility to provide the shots makes it easy for
the company to cover the expense.

After the Pandemic

As the pandemic diminishes, remind everyone that it is still not completely gone.
Keep your guard up as the number of reported cases winds down. Do not slack on
communicating the status until the pandemic is officially declared ended.

Pull all of the team members together for a pandemic plan performance
assessment and critique. Recap the plan and how well it worked. Compare
company performance to that of similar companies nearby. This could be a list ofCo

the actions taken, such as a company-sponsored immunization day, the family
information helpline, or total number of sick days taken compared to previous
(nonpandemic) years.

Collect teams’ ideas and publish them in a report to management. The various
team members will have much to say about their individual efforts. Include
details of what worked well and what must be changed. Pandemics do not come
along every year. After the conclusion of a pandemic emergency, gathering this
information is essential. It may be years before such an emergency arises again.
This report should be the first document reviewed in the next emergency.

Report items might include:

➤ An official announcement that the pandemic emergency plan was closed.

➤ Thanks to the many different people involved.

➤ A review of the effectiveness of the pandemic actions taken (social distancing,
sanitation, communications).

➤ Impact on employees and their families.

➤ Impact on sales of products and service.

➤ Impact on production.

➤ Impact on suppliers.

Another postpandemic activity is to examine how well the relaxed attendance
and the work from home policies worked. Employees will have become accustomed
to the new rules. Before rescinding them, determine the impact on company
operations and morale.

THE ROLE OF THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER

A common factor in infectious diseases is that they are spread through people-
to-people contact. The Human Resources Manager must identify which
company policies impact its pandemic plan. This involves social distancing by
enabling people to work from home and a relaxation of the company’s sick
leave program.

Review Policies Concerning Virtual Workers

Working from home is not new. In recent years, it has become more practical
through the widespread availability of high-speed Internet connections. If a
worker is concerned about commuting on public transportation and demands to
work from home, should that request be honored?

Under what circumstances should someone be permitted to work from home?
Should it be based on the type of work they do or specific company positions?
Should the option be open to all office workers (except those in production, as
hands must reach the materials!)?

192 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

Attendance Policy

Minimize employee-to-employee contact. If someone is ill, the company must
require that person to go home until the illness passes. An obstacle to this is limited
sick leave time. If an employee does not have available sick leave time, they may
come in while ill and spread the disease around the department (similar to one
person with a cold infecting everyone around them).

A similar requirement is someone with a sick family member. That person
could easily bring the infection into the workplace if company leave (paid or
unpaid) was not available. Spell out when the company feels that an ill person is
recovered enough to return to the workplace.

In severe situations, the government may step in and close parts of public
institutions. This might be public assemblies, such as celebrations or sporting
events. They might close public transportation, schools, or even government
offices. Employees unable to travel to work must not be penalized.

During a pandemic emergency, the local government may call for everyone to
minimize their movement, sort of like a “snow day.” Decide how the company will
address paying employees for any government-imposed “stay home” days.

Trained Substitutes

Identify key personnel who can keep the company going. Each of them must have a
trained backup. This provides ongoing service during vacations, illnesses, and other
absences. (Some may become nervous that the company intends to replace them.)
In a pandemic, the trained substitute means you are more likely to have someone
onsite to maintain a vital business function. When selecting backup personnel,
consider your many company locations or regular business travel destinations.

Company Travel

The immediate area around your offices may experience little of the pandemic.
However, most companies have employees who regularly visit distant or
international locations. Travel often includes sitting in a crowded airplane in tiny
seats, standing close to others in lines, and eating in cramped restaurants. This
exposes the traveler to a greater potential of catching a disease.

To minimize the chance that a traveler is bringing back pandemic germs, set
a company policy that anyone returning from a trip will work from home for four
days before coming into the office. The idea is to give the disease (if present) some
time to make itself known.

On occasion, distant sites will be particularly hard hit by the pandemic. Avoid
travel to these locations, as the traveler may arrive there only to be placed in an
extended quarantine as local officials struggle to contain the outbreak. Check the
local news at the intended destination or Web sites such as the World Health
Organization (www.who.int).

PANDEMIC PLAN 193

www.who.int

Consider Working Alternate Shifts

Separate employees by having them work different shifts. Not all work must be
completed during the traditional 9 to 5 timeframe. If a person in a particular
position primarily works alone, then the work can be completed on an alternate
work shift and then passed on to the next person. This might be a valuable tool if
the local schools close, allowing spouses to share childcare responsibilities without
affecting your production.

TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP

The IT department is responsible for pandemic planning prior to an outbreak.
Technology can be used to reduce face-to-face contact with coworkers, suppliers,
and customers. A computer network does not care if you are sitting in an office,
your home, or the next continent. In any case, your workstation connects to the
network, and then to the appropriate IT services. It is important to install this
technology before the onset of a pandemic. Then everyone will be familiar with
the technology and ready to use it as needed.

As an added bonus, these IT actions will reduce the amount of pollutants
generated through normal business practices. In some cases, they will directly
save the company money.

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)

Employees with high-speed Internet access in their homes can work from there.
To maintain the privacy of company data, the communications from the
employee’s home to the company data center is encrypted, thereby making the
network “private.” This is similar to a secure session in which you enter credit card
information into a vendor’s site, except that the encryption starts when the
employee logs on.

Even when a pandemic is not looming on the horizon, a VPN can enable
employees to work from home when caring for a sick family member or when they
are too sick to come in to the office but well enough to work with a computer.
Some employers readily accept this, while others feel that sitting at home offers
too many distractions that will result in less than a full day’s work. Still, people
who spend their days working with computers and passing work objects
electronically are suitable for this option if the individual has a high-speed data
line at home. Positions that require exchanging work objects (such as documents)
with other people do not always fit this model.

Working at home does present some pitfalls. Primarily they deal with the
security of company information. Data can still be printed locally or downloaded
to local PC storage. Employees should be instructed that this insecure environment
should never be used for critical company data or customer data of any type.

How many people will require VPN support in your pandemic plan? VPN
systems have technical limits to the number of users they can support. Even if a

194 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

company has an existing VPN capability, the next step is to ensure that it is adequate
for the number of simultaneous users required in your pandemic plan. In addition,
most use a physical “authentication token” to identify a person. An adequate
supply of these must be available when needed. Many companies provide these
all of the time as this service also supports other business continuity plans.

VPNs also add to a company’s “green” credentials since fewer people are
commuting to work. For details on the use of VPN and its green impact, read our
book Green Tech (AMACOM, 2009).

Virtual Meetings

Teleconferencing is another social distancing technology tool. Instead of
crowding into a tightly packed aircraft full of coughing and sniffling people, use
teleconferencing to conduct meetings with distant workgroups. Online
products, such as Microsoft’s NetMeeting™, can show the same presentation
slides as if you were standing there, while you provide the audio narrative over a
phone line.

Teleconferencing lacks the face-to-face communications and, admittedly, it
denies participants the ability to interpret body language, which is an important
part of a discussion. However, an online meeting saves the time lost to travel, the
expense of travel, and all of the potential infectious contacts with fellow travelers
or business partners. It also adds to a company’s green credentials through
reduced employee commuting.

SANITIZE COMMON AREAS AND OBJECTS

Often, employees or customers are infected before they know it. Their constant
contacts with various fixtures around the facility are potential places for passing
infections on to others. The company’s Facilities department must step up its level
of sanitation efforts during a pandemic to reduce the spread of germs through
contact with contaminated items.

Some of the areas that must be sanitized daily include:

➤ Door knobs and push plates.

➤ Banister rails.

➤ Light switches.

➤ Lunchrooms.

➤ Vending machines.

➤ Shared workstations and tools, for example, the electronic card catalog in
a library.

PANDEMIC PLAN 195

Provide employees with hand sanitizer, tissues, and even face masks. Place the
hand sanitizer in prominent locations for use by employees and guests. This
increases their confidence in the company management and reduces the spread
of germs. There is expense for providing these items, but it is offset by even a slight
reduction in the number of employee sick days.

BUSINESS DEPARTMENTS

Each business department must focus on continuing the flow of products and
services to the customer in the face of significant absenteeism. As always, prioritize
team members to work on the vital business functions and not spend time on
noncritical actions.

One aspect of this is if a geographic area is particularly hard hit by absences.
Many companies specialize functions among their many sites. In this case, the
headquarters building may be relatively disease-free but the distant accounts
receivables office could be in the middle of a pandemic emergency.

Assemble each business team and explain the relaxed attendance policies.
Educate everyone on proper individual sanitation steps. These meetings are an
opportunity for the company’s management team to demonstrate its
commitment to the steps necessary to minimize infection. It also allows time
to answer employees’ questions and pass their concerns on to the pandemic
planning team.

If a department’s work involves a lot of face-to-face contact with customers,
then appropriate sanitation must be readily available. Greeting a customer while
wearing a face mask and surgical gloves is no way to close a sale. Provide hand
sanitizer for all encounters (for the customer, as well as the employee). Most
customers will appreciate your concern for their well-being as well as that of your
own staff.

If there is a concern that the local pandemic outbreak will be severe, for the
sake of business continuity, consider evacuating key personnel to other cities.
Pandemics can sometimes hit one city much harder than another.

A College Adjusts Its Graduation Ceremony

At the height of the H1N1 pandemic, a university was faced with a dilemma.
Graduation is an important milestone for students. Yet shaking hands as the
diplomas were handed out could potentially spread infection from a student to
the dean and then to subsequent graduating students (a typical social distancing
problem). Rather than risk the health of the faculty and students, the school
personnel handed over the diplomas and gave every student “a knuckle bump”
as he or she crossed the stage.

196 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

TESTING YOUR PANDEMIC PLAN

Pandemic plans are normally tested using a tabletop exercise, They do not require
reassembling office or data centers. They are focused on people and avoiding the
passing of infection.

Implement an exercise/drill to test your plan, and revise periodically. Testing
a plan is the best way to train plan participants on their roles during an emergency.
It also exposes gaps in planning and demonstrates if the plan is keeping current with
changes in the company’s organization, mission, and direction. Test the company’s
pandemic plan at least annually. Otherwise, it will become a shelf ornament.
Without regular exercising and updates, it will become worthless when needed.

From time to time public organizations conduct tests of their pandemic plans.
They like the chance to integrate a company’s reactions into the overall game plan
to add twists to the exercise that they had not foreseen. Working a pandemic plan
with other groups is a great way to add some realism to your company’s test and
to bring fresh ideas into your pandemic action plan.

CONCLUSION

Pandemic planning is a subset of business continuity planning. Unlike the sharp
point in time during which a disaster occurs, a pandemic is like an ocean wave. It
slowly appears, overwhelms the population, and then gradually recedes. A typical
pandemic will run for about a year and a half and strike in two waves, where a
typical disaster is over in a few weeks.

Social distancing is an important mitigation step. Pandemics require loosening
the company’s absence policy to ensure that sick people stay home. Time must
also be allowed for tending to family members as employees may carry the infection
from the family member to the workplace.

Use technology to enable people to work from home and stay separated from
potential infection. This will also enable someone providing home care for a sick
relative to still provide essential services. As a side note, this will also improve a
company’s green credentials.

Establish a communications plan for passing information to employees,
pandemic staff members, customers, and suppliers. Explain the steps you are
taking and individual actions everyone should perform. Also provide information
about detecting the symptoms and how to treat them at home. Communication
plans must be in place before they are needed so that everyone knows where to
look for what they need.

Finally, arrange for the immunization of employees and their families. This
might be coordinated through local clinics and your health insurance provider.
This will reduce the likelihood of an employee infection, and therefore reduced
sick time absences. Some companies pay for the immunization to increase
employee participation.

PANDEMIC PLAN 197

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C H A P T E R 1 0

WORK AREA RECOVERY PLAN
Getting the Office Up and Running

Ya gots to work with what you gots to work with.
— Stevie Wonder

INTRODUCTION

Work area recovery means preparing workspace in which to temporarily recover
business operations. It usually involves offices, but it could easily encompass call
centers, retail space, or factories. Whatever its function, a plan is needed to
establish a place for people to work. Every day that your business is out of service
is another day where:

➤ Your competitors’ sales force is active while yours is idle.

➤ Bills are not sent to customers nor is there a place to receive funds.

➤ Bills are not paid and potentially become overdue.

➤ Customer orders are not received or processed, potentially leading
to cancellation.

Some companies focus exclusively on recovering their IT operations and
never think about applying the same effort to the people who are to use the IT
services. Recovering one without the other will not restore service to your customers.
Office space will not be recovered within the RTO without a tested plan.

This plan enables key personnel (such as the sales force and the tech support
call center) to work during a disruptive event. Creating and testing this plan
demonstrates corporate responsibility while simultaneously protecting your
business reputation. A plan that promptly restores service minimizes the
disruption of revenue and also protects customer relationships.

WORK AREA RECOVERY PLAN 165

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Work areas are more prone to disasters (small and large) than a data center.
Rivers breach their banks, water pipes burst, small fires are turned into large water
hazards by the fire department, and on and on. In a blizzard, the data center keeps
chugging on, but the offices stop as employees are unable to come in to work. In
a labor action, people cannot get in to the workplace, but the IT system runs on
and on. So, planning for a loss of work areas is more practical and has a more
likely payback than planning for an IT loss.

Customers are sensitive to supplier interruptions. Many long-term contracts
require that the supplier demonstrate that a tested plan is in place. Everyone has
at one time or another been disappointed by the failure of someone to deliver
promised goods or services when ordered. For most companies, their office
workers are their “face to the customer.” When no one answers the phone during
business hours, customers become very concerned about that company’s reliability
and look elsewhere for goods and services.

A challenge in working in recovered facilities is security of company information.
Computers are always a target for anyone looking to make quick cash, but in a
recovered site, confidential company documents must also be safeguarded. Many
people may not be known to others, enabling curious strangers and criminally
minded people to enter the facility and wander around.

The easiest team to recover is the executive staff. Some of them are already in
the Command Center. The rest can work out of a hotel conference room from
which they can use company cell phones for outbound calls. In many cases, their
key customers already know their company cell phone number for inbound calls.
Further, the hotel can provide an online connection.

Other departments, such as Customer Service, are heavily dependent on
inbound telephone traffic. These groups must recover in a dedicated location so
that the inbound telephone connections can be quickly changed. Like other
transaction-based teams, the sales crew will require ready access to its data.

Included on the CD attached to this book is a sample Work Area Recovery Plan
(Form 10-1). This sample plan is only a starting point. Customize it to meet your
own company requirements. For instance, there are example risk assessments
and restoration priority charts which you must replace with those based on your
own information developed in other chapters.

WRITING A WORK AREA RECOVERY PLAN

The first question to answer is, why are you writing this plan? What problem are
you solving? Is it to keep the Sales department always functioning? Is it a regulatory
or contracted requirement? Whatever it is, write it down before starting your plan.
This reason anchors the plan development and prevents it from drifting off target.
It will vary from just someone to answer the phone to maintaining full customer
service even during a disaster.

166 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

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Based on this reason, select a strategy that describes the site where you will
recover (in a company site, in a rented facility many miles away, or in local facilities
acquired at the time they are needed). It details how many seats must be
immediately available and, sometimes, how many more should be ready within
an additional time period. Most importantly, it will identify the recovery time
objective (RTO) for the facility to be ready.

The key elements to the plan are to select a recovery site, determine who
should be there, equip the site, activate the site, and operate it during a company
disaster. In a company-wide emergency, alternative work arrangements may be
necessary, such as employees working from home or in scattered groups where
facilities can be secured.

An important piece of the strategy is to enable employees to work from home.
This requires advanced planning to provide them with Virtual Private Network
(VPN) access. A VPN enables them to securely connect to the data center (or
recovered data center) and continue their online work. To do this, companies
must create a policy governing people working from home. Working from home
should never involve company confidential material.

Recovered departments normally follow a hierarchy of importance. For example:

➤ Executive management, legal team, corporate communications, (core)
Human Resources team—typically recovered near the Command Center and
the disaster site.

➤ Human Resources (the remainder at the office recovery site).

➤ Customer contact team (Sales).

➤ Accounting (cash flow).

➤ Company operations.

Write a separate plan for each type of work area to be recovered, such as office,
call center, warehouse, factory, retail, etc. Each will likely have its own recovery
site and its unique requirements.

A Place to Work

Building the plan is a team effort. Include representatives from each of the critical
departments during site selection and work area layout. If the departments don’t
like the layout, they won’t use it. Their ideas and last-minute requirements are
essential to make the site selection a success.

Review the vital business functions identified by the Business Impact Analysis
with each department. Identify how many people need to be recovered from each
team. Some will need to be recovered immediately, and some later. Be sure to
include space for the supervisors and managers necessary for the team to function.
Most recovery sites are wide open spaces, so carefully assign the few offices
available. Executives will expect individual offices.

For each person, estimate 70 to 80 square feet of space. Multiply this times the
number of people, and you will have the approximate minimum floor space

WORK AREA RECOVERY PLAN 167

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requirements. This amount of space also accounts for hallways, conference
rooms, reception, break room, and common areas. You can cram people into
tighter space but productivity, already constrained by the basic work environment,
will be further reduced at a time when more is needed. Sometimes the limiting
factor is the local building and safety code for occupancy limits and mandatory
ratio of sanitary facilities to personnel.

To stretch your limited assets, consider changing some departments to night
hours. In this approach, customer-facing team members, such as customer service,
technical support, or sales, are in the seats during daytime hours, while accounting,
Human Resources, etc.—team members who are internally focused—work in the
same spaces at night.

There are three kinds of “seats” that can be set up for recovery. “Hot seats” are
fully equipped and ready to go. These are the most expensive to set up and
maintain. “Warm seats” are missing some of the equipment, usually the personal
computer and telephone. “Cold seats” are floor space and may or may not have a
table and chair. This space may be set aside for team members who can wait
several days before recovering.

In general, a work surface should be 36 inches wide and 24 inches deep. This
provides sufficient depth for the PC and keyboard and some space to the side for
shuffling papers and writing. Of course, a comfortable chair to accompany the
worktable is important. Adequate lighting either from desk lamps or overhead
light (preferred) is essential. Take care that data, telephone and power cords are
carefully routed to avoid tripping anyone.

To allocate scarce resources in a chaotic time, establish a restoration priority
for your recovery site. A restoration priority ensures that the recovery team is always
focused on the highest value actions for that moment. This is as simple as a sequence
of what to do next. Be sure this priority list is well communicated to the teams.

One author developed a plan to recover a technical support center that required
each technician to use two dial-out telephone lines for modems to connect to
customer PCs. This requirement was uncovered by inspecting a “typical”
workstation and was not provided by local management.

Make sure to carefully consider the environmental control needs for people
and technical equipment. The facility must be able to hold the temperature and
humidity within an acceptable range. This avoids problems with equipment and
with people becoming ill in the midst of a company disaster. How important can
this be? Imagine someone trying to recover offices in an empty warehouse in the
middle of winter. Everything else can be there except the ability to hold heat
within the work area.

Other aspects to consider in selecting a recovery site include:

➤ Easy access to airports, major highways, or public transportation.

168 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

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➤ Adequate parking.

➤ Loading dock for deliveries.

➤ Nearby lodging and food establishments.

➤ Storage space for preprinted forms and reference materials onsite for ready use.

The key to the success of the facility selection is the careful management of
end-user expectations. Emphasize that it provides a basic work area with limited
service. As the plan is tested, each department will better understand the situation
and become your champion to finance facility improvements. The size, location,
and desk setup will all drive the solution’s cost. The executive approval process
often cuts back on user requests.

Recovery Options

The criteria used for selecting a site for recovering your workers is similar to that of
selecting an IT recovery site. It should be far enough away to avoid damage from the
same incident. Beyond that, it can be quite close or two states away. If the recovery
will be in a commercial site, then it may be several states or more away. Commercial
recovery sites are sprinkled around the country, and the nearest available site may
be across the country. The first company to declare a disaster has its pick of sites. In
a wide-area disaster, the nearest available site may be far away. For this reason, when
a hurricane strikes, some companies declare a disaster immediately. Figure 10-1
lists the issues you need to consider when evaluating recovery options.

DIFFERENT COMPANY SITE Using a different company site is a simple way to go.
This site should be close enough for people to drive to it. If it is also used for IT
training classes, then it can be quickly converted to a recovery site by canceling
the classes and reimaging the computers. Using a company site means you know
it has an active network and telephone connections, the security is already in
place, and you can pre-position materials for emergency use. For the desktop PCs,
you might use the last generation of units that you were going to scrap.

Using a company site brings the risk that some executive will try to use it for
an operational activity. When a disaster strikes, it will be difficult to kick them out.
Therefore, closely guard the facility’s uses. Do not dress it up so much that it is too
attractive to someone. Its layout should be dictated by how it will be used and is
not designed for aesthetics.

CONTRACTED HOT SITE A contracted hot site is the “least-grief” approach because
you pay someone to take on all the maintenance. The terms of the agreement
depend on the vendor and the level of service you hire, but it typically includes
test time and a set number of seats in a recovery. Any variation from the standard
desktop and single line telephone must be coordinated with the vendor. These
sites are close to public transportation and already have arrangements for local
lodging and food.

WORK AREA RECOVERY PLAN 169

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Security
Inbound
telecom

Data
bandwidth Time to activate

Potential
problems Relative cost

Different
company
site

Total control Control over
capacity

Known Minimal, a few
hours if properly
equipped

Clearing out
whoever is using
the equipment

Expensive, unless
the facility is used
for low value uses

Contracted
hot site

High Available
capacity

Available
capacity

24 hours Nearest available
site may be far
away

High

Mobile
recovery
equipment

Your
responsibility;
total control
but perimeter
is open

Limited to
equipment
capability

24 hours If the company
site is unavailable,
must find another
quickly

High

Scramble
at the time
of incident

Multiple sites
mean minimal
control

Too dispersed
to easily
swing the
inbound calls
to a site

Dispersal
should
provide
adequate
bandwidth to
each site

Long; this is an
untested plan

Recovery delayed
while locating a
site, which may
require
preparation

Zero until it is
needed and then
high

FIGURE 10-1: Recovery options.

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Contracted hot sites can be expensive. Testing time must be reserved far in
advance and may be preempted if another customer declares a disaster and
occupies the space. Testing time may also require an additional fee. Finally, in a
disaster, the closest recovery facility may be occupied and the nearest available
seats several states away.

MOBILE RECOVERY EQUIPMENT Mobile recovery equipment comes to the disaster
site. These are expandable trailers that contain almost everything needed in a
disaster site. Each trailer includes its own generator, telephone switch, and a
satellite uplink for communications. When a disaster is declared, the trailers are
pulled to the customer site and activated. If local electricity and data communication
connections are available, then so much the better.

An immediate advantage to this approach is that all employees sleep at home.
This enables a high level of employee participation (depending on the type of
disaster). In an incident such as a structural fire, using trailers provides an onsite
presence that may be comforting to customers.

A trailer’s usefulness may be limited in a wide-area disaster like a flood. If the
company’s building is inundated with flood water, so is the parking lot, so the
trailers must be parked somewhere else. If the company lacks distant property,
then a site must be rented. Still, employees can likely drive to the trailers and back
home at night.

SCRAMBLE RIGHT AFTER THE INCIDENT Some companies feel that the local real
estate situation is such that buildings with adequate space and facilities can be
found on short notice. Then, the workplace is set up with a damn-the-cost speed.
Overall, the company then saves the annual expense of subscribing to recovery
trailers or to a hot site.

The first problem with this approach is that it leaves all planning to the point
of incident, when there is so much to do. Without a test site, the plan cannot be
validated or the team members adequately trained. Second, it ignores that more
is needed than four walls and a roof. External data and telephone connections are
required, as well as properly configured desktop equipment. Finally, it
underestimates the time required to settle the real estate details even if everyone
is pressing for an immediate resolution.

Pre-position special forms and reference material needed by the work groups
during their time at the recovery site.

Employee Notification

Immediately after a disaster is declared (an incident that activates this plan), the
facility preparation crew is notified. In most cases, this is the team leader for each

WORK AREA RECOVERY PLAN 171

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recovery team. This crew opens the facility and prepares it for the recovery teams.
If the recovery is in a commercial site, some of this may be done by the service
provider, based on terms of the service agreement.

The crew is notified by the company’s automated notification “telephone
blast” system, which sends a notification to every person on a particular list.
(Alternatively, the slower and less reliable telephone call tree may be used.) This
crew includes team leaders for:

➤ Security.

➤ Facilities.

➤ Each supported department.

➤ Onsite IT support.

➤ Onsite telecommunications and network support.

If there was an IT disaster as well, then there will be a time delay before the IT
systems are usable and can be used. If so, the main crew for the recovery site
should be alerted through the automatic notification system (or other process) to
arrive about 24 hours before all systems are scheduled to be recovered. This
minimizes idle time at the site waiting for IT application availability.

Tools to Work With

A personal computer with a network connection and a telephone are the primary
tools provided to an office worker. The first challenge is to provide the equipment.
Keep spare units onsite ready to exchange in case of a failure. In a chaotic recovery,
there is no time to wait for a repairperson.

Work together with each recovery team to develop a “standard” workstation
layout. This will ease unit setup and IT support. A standard unit will also make it
easy to move equipment between the teams as the recovery team makeup shifts.

Each department must create checklists for activation of their teams. These
lists will ensure that the required materials are stored in the facility for ready use.
They will also provide a list of items to monitor for updates, such as procedure
manuals, quality checklists, routing forms, etc.

DESKTOP PCS With an unlimited budget, a quick trip around town can collect
enough PCs to support all of your recovery sites. The challenge is to load the
company’s desktop PC software image onto those devices. This can require an
hour per unit (assuming that a copy of the image was maintained at the recovery
site). If there are hundreds of units to load, the process can be quite tedious. The
software image contains the operating system and its configuration settings,
specific device drives for the onboard components, information security settings,
copies of all standard software, etc.

If the PCs being used are not the exact same model as the company standard,
then a software image must be created for each model (or variation on a model)
potentially requiring several hours. A new image is required to ensure that all of

172 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

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EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) – printed on 1/27/2018 1:56 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM
AN: 349248 ; Wallace, Michael, Webber, Larry.; The Disaster Recovery Handbook : A Step-by-Step Plan to
Ensure Business Continuity and Protect Vital Operations, Facilities, and Assets
Account: s7348467.main.ehost

the necessary hardware drivers are installed and configured as well as all security
settings installed. If the emergency purchasing process brought in many different
models, then the problem grows.

Some companies bypass the PC imaging issue by using a virtual environment
for their desktops. Virtual environments can run on any typical PC and
configuration. Using this technology, the PC’s “desktop” is a session inside of a
computer room server. Once that server is recovered (and the user’s data is
restored), the employee will see his or her electronic desktop as before. In essence,
the PC runs a browser into the server, so little local configuration is required.

As an interim to the data center recovery, many companies establish a file
server at the recovery site. This unit provides a local “public disk” for file sharing
and local reference information. It can also be used to hold the latest software
“image” and any other files that would be locally useful in a recovery. A maintenance
item is to keep the information on this device current.

If office workers back up their PCs to the data center regularly, then their data
will be available to recover.

TELEPHONES Few office workers can complete their daily tasks without ready
access to a telephone, with its quick access to coworkers, customers, suppliers,
etc. Given the close working quarters in the recovery site, speaker phones are
impractical. Therefore, each desk should have a hands-free headset.

Some workers, such as those in Customer Service, depend heavily on inbound
telephone traffic. They will require an Automated Call Director (ACD) device to
route incoming calls to the proper place. (This is another reason for not allowing
people to sit anywhere they wish.) Outbound callers can supplement the recovery
center’s phones with company cell phones. This will also free the facility’s telephone
trunks for inbound calls.

Because everyone working in the facility is new to the building, provide a
preprinted telephone directory to each seat (but do not print it until the center is
activated). This will be based on previous seating assignments and not on who
actually appears.

PRINTERS There are times when a printed document or label is essential. Each
department must identify its printing requirements in terms of types of printers,
volume (so adequate printer materials and paper stock can be stored in the center),
workstations each must connect to, etc. This may lead to requirements for special
printers, which then leads to the requirement to store printing supplies (toner, ink
cartridges and ribbons) onsite.

The other half of printing is the material to print on. This could be special sizes
or colors of paper, multiple part forms, stickers, etc. An alternative to preprinted
forms is a template on which the employee enters the information. A laser printer

WORK AREA RECOVERY PLAN 173

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EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) – printed on 1/27/2018 1:56 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM
AN: 349248 ; Wallace, Michael, Webber, Larry.; The Disaster Recovery Handbook : A Step-by-Step Plan to
Ensure Business Continuity and Protect Vital Operations, Facilities, and Assets
Account: s7348467.main.ehost

then prints the completed form. This avoids the need to stockpile expensive
preprinted documents that eventually become obsolete and must be refreshed.
Printing supplies should be adequate for as long as it takes to order a resupply
plus at least one day. These supplies will age and must be rotated back for use in
the primary facility over time. The more specialized these materials are, the longer
that it may take to obtain them.

Some offices use many printed reports. The ideal solution is to convert these
documents to online viewing and only print the small portions that must be on
paper. If that is not practical, then high-speed printing may be required at the
recovery site. This may require a large impact or laser printer, raising the
competency level required for onsite IT support.

A corporate companion to a printer is a shredder. This tool reduces the chance
that confidential printed company information can be retrieved from the trash.
The shredder location should be marked on the floor plans and placed somewhere
to minimize its contribution to the noise level.

REFERENCE MATERIALS Many office workers use reference materials in their work.
This includes physical documents, as well as electronically stored data runs from
sales tax tables to a catalog of industrial suppliers to telephone numbers for local
trucking companies. Each department should include on its activation checklists
the reference materials necessary to function. There may be an opportunity to
consolidate some of these documents for fewer copies. The reference materials
held in the recovery facility should be provided and maintained by each department.

Some of the company’s reference materials may be confidential “vital
records.” These may include financial information, customer data, or even the
health records of employees. In each case, the vital records must be protected
from internal compromise just as they would be in the normal company offices.
This may require locked doors or locked cabinets in the work areas. Where possible,
obtain or convert reference documents to CDs or obtain them via the Internet.
This is another point in favor of an onsite recovery facility file sharing server.

Provide reference material detailing the recovery facility which:

➤ Explains the layout of the facility.

➤ Shows the arrangement of departments in the facility seating.

➤ Includes a telephone number chart for the recovery area (especially valuable
if each of the seats is designated for a specific person).

Collocate Interactive Teams

Selecting who sits where can be emotional for some people. Some wish to sit by
windows, others away from the door, etc. Bring in representatives from each

174 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

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EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) – printed on 1/27/2018 1:56 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM
AN: 349248 ; Wallace, Michael, Webber, Larry.; The Disaster Recovery Handbook : A Step-by-Step Plan to
Ensure Business Continuity and Protect Vital Operations, Facilities, and Assets
Account: s7348467.main.ehost

department that will work in the recovery center. Some groups naturally work
close together. They pass physical documents or exchange information on a
routine basis. These teams should be located adjacent to each other. Other teams,
such as the company legal department, require privacy and value isolation. When
laying out your recovery area, keep in mind the specific needs of each team. A
carefully designed and executive-approved floor plan can minimize arguments
and political posturing.

It may seem easier to locate different teams in different recovery sites. However,
this compounds the security issue, as someone must protect the materials and
documents at each site around the clock.

Once the seating is settled, create signs for each of the work areas. When the
recovery team begins arriving at the facility, its members will need to know where
to work. If this information is hard to find, then people will start sitting wherever
it strikes their fancy, disrupting all of the careful planning. To reduce this confusion,
install lots of signs. You should:

➤ Label every door in the building.

➤ Label every cabinet as to its contents.

➤ Label every desk in the recovery center as to the department using it and those
dedicated desks that no one else should use.

➤ Suspend signs from the ceiling to indicate the location of each department.

Telecommunications and Data Systems

A recovered work area site must have a data connection to the recovered IT site.
The bandwidth must be adequate to support the number of workstations at the
site. In addition, telephone service must be provided to the desktop. Adequate
inbound service can be an issue. Inbound telephone lines must be rerouted to the
recovery site for the duration of its use. Outbound traffic is less of an issue as cell
phones can be used.

The difficult parts of the plan to execute are moving the inbound call lines
from the damaged work site to the recovery location. This includes fax machines,
inbound local telephone lines, and inbound toll-free numbers.

The telecommunications support team must work with the telecom provider
in advance to understand the steps to do this. As always, the question is how long
will this take and will it still meet your RTO? Specific information may be required,
such as the phone numbers involved, the service provider’s contract number, and
whom to call to request this immediate service.

Several important telephone features to include are conferencing and voice
mail. These functions are common in offices, and their absence will be an
employee productivity concern.

WORK AREA RECOVERY PLAN 175

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EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) – printed on 1/27/2018 1:56 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM
AN: 349248 ; Wallace, Michael, Webber, Larry.; The Disaster Recovery Handbook : A Step-by-Step Plan to
Ensure Business Continuity and Protect Vital Operations, Facilities, and Assets
Account: s7348467.main.ehost

The recovery site activation team sets up signage so everyone knows where to
go, where to sit, and where to secure supplies. They verify that each workstation,
telephone, printer, fax, copier, shredder, etc. is ready to go. They pull from storage
any reference materials, special forms, etc. so that each desk is ready to begin
when the recovery team arrives.

In a crisis, think imaginatively. Office workers can use their personal cell phones
for outbound calls. The company can reimburse them for by-the-minute plan or
provide a flat reimbursement such as an average month’s usage.

Security

Activating a recovery facility transforms it from an empty or lightly occupied
building into a hub of activity. It will attract a lot of attention. Few people in the
company can recognize every employee. There will be many strange faces in the
crowd. This is an opportunity for a stranger to walk in and leave with company
property under his or her arm. The recovery site requires both physical security to
protect assets and information security to protect its data.

An easy way to control access is to use the same key card access as used in the
primary facility. This will require adding employees to the local security server. If
you keep a backup copy of the primary facility’s key card access list, it can be
added locally along with the security zones into which they are welcome.
Otherwise, post a security guard at the employee entrance. No one enters the
building without a card key, a company ID card, or without being escorted by a
company employee.

In addition to security for the building, there is also security for company
documents created during the recovery. This might be anything pertaining to
legal compliance, call logs, customer information, etc. Ensure there is adequate
shredder support onsite in sound-deadening rooms.

Another issue is that the workstations are close together. While in the primary
facility there may be sound deadening walls and cubicle barriers, everything is
now wide open. Ask everyone to speak quietly since others may be on the telephone
nearby. For security, be careful about what is spoken out in the open.

If you are using a commercial hot site, security to the facility will be provided for
you, as will the external data and telephone connections.

TESTING

Before a plan can be declared as operational, it must be tested. This trains the
participants, as well as demonstrates that the plan can meet the RTO. Over time,

176 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

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EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) – printed on 1/27/2018 1:56 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM
AN: 349248 ; Wallace, Michael, Webber, Larry.; The Disaster Recovery Handbook : A Step-by-Step Plan to
Ensure Business Continuity and Protect Vital Operations, Facilities, and Assets
Account: s7348467.main.ehost

be sure that each department has a team participating and observing the tests.
This familiarizes them with the recovery site, the area around it, recovery
processes, tradeoffs, limitations at the site, etc.

Recovery site testing is often conducted in small groups. It is very difficult to
swing inbound lines into the center, but teams who primarily use outbound lines
can test the plan by working onsite for several days. This also works well for
internally focused (noncustomer facing) teams.

MAINTAINING THE RECOVERY SITE

If your company is providing its own recovery site, it will require regular
maintenance. The revision level of the recovery site must match that of the site it
is supporting. As the organization changes or as the emphasis of the business
evolves, so must the recovery facility. This eliminates one more distraction when
recovering the facility in this site. Maintenance should be performed at the
following intervals:

Annually

➤ Executives must determine if the Business Impact Analysis has materially
changed from the previous year.

➤ IT validates that the desktop computer hardware is adequate and still meets
corporate standards.

➤ Telecom support team reevaluates if the telecom arrangements need to
be changed.

Quarterly

➤ Each department reviews its desktop requirements with the IT team, which
ensures that the desktop computers in the recovery facility still meet
everyone’s needs.

➤ The IT team verifies that the software in the recovery units is adequately
patched with bug fixes and security patches.

Periodically conduct tours of the facility. This will acquaint employees with
where they may work in an emergency and familiarize them with the facility’s
layout. This is an opportunity to remind everyone that this facility’s value is to
always be ready in an emergency and that it is not available for use as a
“production” facility.

One idea is to “brand” the facility to help place its recovery function in people’s
minds. For example, “People and Infrastructure Recovery Facility (PIRF)” or “The
ORB (Office Recovery Building).” Another idea is to create an employee information
brochure that describes the facility’s capabilities. The brochure includes a map
and driving directions to the recovery site.

WORK AREA RECOVERY PLAN 177

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EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) – printed on 1/27/2018 1:56 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM
AN: 349248 ; Wallace, Michael, Webber, Larry.; The Disaster Recovery Handbook : A Step-by-Step Plan to
Ensure Business Continuity and Protect Vital Operations, Facilities, and Assets
Account: s7348467.main.ehost

CONCLUSION

Every company depends heavily on its IT department. Its prompt recovery is
critical to the company’s continued viability. However, some companies overlook
the fact that recovered computer databases are of little value if no one is available
to use them. A work area recovery plan is an essential complement to any IT
recovery plan.

Recovering a workplace is not trivial. People need an adequate place to do
their jobs, with a minimum of environmental distractions. Adequate data lines
must be installed in advance, as they cannot be prepared on short notice.
Similarly, telephone service must be in place so that when the incident occurs, the
inbound lines can be quickly redirected from the damaged facility to the
recovery site.

Selecting a recovery strategy will likely follow the same strategy as the IT
recovery plan. It may be another company site, a third-party facility, or bringing
fully equipped trailers to the disaster site. Each approach has its advantages and
disadvantages in terms of convenience, cost, and capabilities.

Recovery sites are busy places. It should be very easy to find your way through
the recovery site. Signs should be everywhere informing recovery team members
where to go, where to find things, and where not to go.

Be sure to test everything at the recovery site as soon as you arrive. The RTO is
measured from the time of the incident, not from when you were alerted. Early
detection of problems enhances the chances of a timely recovery.

Finally, if you have designated a company site for recovery, never let your
defenses down for a moment. Name it something that positions it in people’s
minds as providing value as the recovery site. Never let it be used for even a small
production function. Regularly scheduled testing helps to keep it active enough
(and annoying enough) that production functions look elsewhere for a
quieter setting.

178 THE DISASTER RECOVERY HANDBOOK

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EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) – printed on 1/27/2018 1:56 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM
AN: 349248 ; Wallace, Michael, Webber, Larry.; The Disaster Recovery Handbook : A Step-by-Step Plan to
Ensure Business Continuity and Protect Vital Operations, Facilities, and Assets
Account: s7348467.main.ehost

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