Unfortunately, we don’t yet have technology that can prevent a storm of the magnitude of Hurricane Harvey from devastating our cities and towns. But it can help in the response, and even provide valuable information for citizens trying to survive a catastrophic event.
One key is properly locating backup and recovery systems for government agencies. Typically, most cities and towns with a backup plan for their data rely on nearby data centers. That’s fine if there is a fire at the local office building or something that forces the temporary closure of government buildings. However, these local backups are far less effective in dealing with events like Harvey, where an entire city or an even larger geographic area is damaged or destroyed. A Department of Homeland Security report issued after Superstorm Sandy cited this as one potential weakness in most government backup plans. There were towns in New Jersey that had both their main data centers and their backups flooded or otherwise destroyed by the storm.
Read the entire story in NextGov, and see how government can get ready for the next big disaster.