Perhaps the only thing worse than a disaster happening is seeing it coming and knowing nothing can be done to stop it. Businesses along the northeastern seaboard had several days of warning before Hurricane Sandy struck, certainly not enough time to implement a disaster recovery plan from scratch. Even more painful is the understanding that some disaster recovery plans would not be enough; physical backup systems in separate geographical areas may have still suffered the same losses as the home site due to the size of the storm.
Most disasters come with no warning at all. Explosions, power outages, and simple equipment failure can cause the same damage. Operations are down, customers suffer, and revenues tank. Once business recovers the harder work of wooing back customers and convincing new ones about the company’s reliability begins.