interdictor (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} interdictor) wrote,@ 2005-10-28 11:01:00 |
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FLASHBACK: Assembling the Team to Take on Hurricane Katrina; Part II
Post by Sigmund Solares
Chief Executive Officer
Intercosmos Media Group, Inc.
Editors note: In the Flashback posts, I am going to provided details of what happened before, during and after Hurricane Katrina hit. Today I am going back to Saturday, August 28, 2005, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit. Flashback I is posted at http://www.livejournal.com/users/interd
With my team in place, my plan was to sleep late on Sunday morning so that I could stay up when the hurricane hit. I needed to be well rested. From past experience, I knew it could be a real endurance test. I was surprised to be awakened around 7:30 a.m. by Michael Brunson. He called to tell me that Hurricane Katrina had strengthened greatly overnight with winds gusting over 200 MPH -- and that he had decided to evacuate. With the word that Brunson was leaving, I feared that other members of the team would leave as well. I then started making calls to see who from my team still planned to stay at the data center.
Meanwhile, I called Barnett and told him about how the storm had strengthened, and to ask if he was still with us. Barnett responded that he definitely was coming to the office, and that he was packed and ready for adventure, pausing only to ask me if I had my gun and bullet-proof jacket.
I called Donny, knowing that he would already be aware of the storm’s development. Donny had some things to finish around his house to prepare for the storm, but he confirmed that he would join us shortly after.
It then came down to James Macallum. He was in. We still had a core team.
Even with their assurances, I still was quietly nervous that they might decide to evacuate. There was no precedent for what a storm with 200 mph gusts would do to New Orleans. To take the media’s word for it, you’d have to be a madman to stay in town, but, they said they were staying.
Four out of five wasn’t bad, but one more would make me feel a lot more secure.
About that time, James Winston, a programmer, walked past my office, and a moment later he walked by again. He had loaded his truck with some of his belongings and was debating evacuating.
James is a talented programmer, and I knew that he would be able to add to the team. Without trying to pressure him, I told him that we could definitely use his help if he decided to stay. In the end, he did.
Since 1999, when we started InterCosmos, we adhered to the philosophy that individuals should cross-train to a certain extent, especially on mission critical operations. I wouldn’t know for a few more days just how glad I’d be that we adopted that practice.
Perhaps I was a bit overconfident before the worst disaster in the country’s history, but even with only one individual from network operations staying at the data center, I still believed that we had enough experience operating the generator and running the data center to pull through. Donny, especially, had the technical expertise necessary that we would need when our city turned into Ground Zero.
As evening approached, hurricane advisories and news stories predicting gloom and doom started to be passed around by email and instant messenger. The advisories were downright scary. We were advised that, “Every window in downtown New Orleans would blow out.”
Our friends and other employees were telling us how bad it would be. We knew that this was not an ordinary storm. However, we talked about the hype, and as a team we were not intimidated by the advisories.
We definitely didn’t believe the one that said some high-rise buildings in New Orleans would collapse. However, the fact that we even had to consider such a concept added to the gravity of the situation.
We reasoned that the odds were in our favor; if buildings started to collapse in the CBD, our building would not be among the first ones down, as it is wider and shorter than others in the CBD. So we added “keeping watch for falling buildings” to our safety checklist. We then concluded our mental fire drill in agreement that we were in good shape.
At that point, we decided to try to get some sleep before the storm hit. Despite the frantic tone of the media, things seemed pretty calm. It was hard to imagine that total chaos could be just hours away.
Post by Sigmund Solares
Chief Executive Officer
Intercosmos Media Group, Inc.
Editors note: In the Flashback posts, I am going to provided details of what happened before, during and after Hurricane Katrina hit. Today I am going back to Saturday, August 28, 2005, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit. Flashback I is posted at http://www.livejournal.com/users/interd
With my team in place, my plan was to sleep late on Sunday morning so that I could stay up when the hurricane hit. I needed to be well rested. From past experience, I knew it could be a real endurance test. I was surprised to be awakened around 7:30 a.m. by Michael Brunson. He called to tell me that Hurricane Katrina had strengthened greatly overnight with winds gusting over 200 MPH -- and that he had decided to evacuate. With the word that Brunson was leaving, I feared that other members of the team would leave as well. I then started making calls to see who from my team still planned to stay at the data center.
Meanwhile, I called Barnett and told him about how the storm had strengthened, and to ask if he was still with us. Barnett responded that he definitely was coming to the office, and that he was packed and ready for adventure, pausing only to ask me if I had my gun and bullet-proof jacket.
I called Donny, knowing that he would already be aware of the storm’s development. Donny had some things to finish around his house to prepare for the storm, but he confirmed that he would join us shortly after.
It then came down to James Macallum. He was in. We still had a core team.
Even with their assurances, I still was quietly nervous that they might decide to evacuate. There was no precedent for what a storm with 200 mph gusts would do to New Orleans. To take the media’s word for it, you’d have to be a madman to stay in town, but, they said they were staying.
Four out of five wasn’t bad, but one more would make me feel a lot more secure.
About that time, James Winston, a programmer, walked past my office, and a moment later he walked by again. He had loaded his truck with some of his belongings and was debating evacuating.
James is a talented programmer, and I knew that he would be able to add to the team. Without trying to pressure him, I told him that we could definitely use his help if he decided to stay. In the end, he did.
Since 1999, when we started InterCosmos, we adhered to the philosophy that individuals should cross-train to a certain extent, especially on mission critical operations. I wouldn’t know for a few more days just how glad I’d be that we adopted that practice.
Perhaps I was a bit overconfident before the worst disaster in the country’s history, but even with only one individual from network operations staying at the data center, I still believed that we had enough experience operating the generator and running the data center to pull through. Donny, especially, had the technical expertise necessary that we would need when our city turned into Ground Zero.
As evening approached, hurricane advisories and news stories predicting gloom and doom started to be passed around by email and instant messenger. The advisories were downright scary. We were advised that, “Every window in downtown New Orleans would blow out.”
Our friends and other employees were telling us how bad it would be. We knew that this was not an ordinary storm. However, we talked about the hype, and as a team we were not intimidated by the advisories.
We definitely didn’t believe the one that said some high-rise buildings in New Orleans would collapse. However, the fact that we even had to consider such a concept added to the gravity of the situation.
We reasoned that the odds were in our favor; if buildings started to collapse in the CBD, our building would not be among the first ones down, as it is wider and shorter than others in the CBD. So we added “keeping watch for falling buildings” to our safety checklist. We then concluded our mental fire drill in agreement that we were in good shape.
At that point, we decided to try to get some sleep before the storm hit. Despite the frantic tone of the media, things seemed pretty calm. It was hard to imagine that total chaos could be just hours away.
