Disaster Recovery Journal- Volume 19, Issue 2 - Spring 2006 Issue

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Spring 2006 Issue

DISASTER RECOVERY
JOURNAL

P. O. Box 510110
St. Louis, MO 63151
(314) 894-0276
Fax: (314) 894-7474
Internet www.drj.com
E-mail drj@drj.com

PUBLISHER
Richard L. Arnold, CBCP
richard@drj.com

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Jon Seals
jon@drj.com

SENIOR EDITOR
Janette Ballman
janette@drj.com

COPY EDITORS
Richard Sandhofer
richards@drj.com
Pamela Clifton
pamelaclifton@hotmail.com

ADVERTISING
Robert Arnold
bob@drj.com

_____________

Corporate

President/CEO
Richard L. Arnold, CBCP
richard@drj.com

Vice President
Robert Arnold
bob@drj.com

CONFERENCE COORDINATOR
Patti Fitzgerald, CBCP
patti@drj.com

CONFERENCE REGISTRAR
Merce Knese
mercedes@drj.com

CIRCULATION
Laura Baugh
laurab@drj.com

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
Jeff Dato, MBCP, KPMG
John Jackson, J Albright Advisors
Edward Devlin, E.S. Devlin & Associates
James Hammill, CBCP, JMH Consulting
Pat McAnally, SunGard Availability
Brian Turley, Strohl Systems
Belinda Wilson, Hewlett-Packard

INTERNATIONAL
CONTACTS
England: Thom Hetherington
Business Continuity
Phone: 0161-237-1007
thomh@tempus.demon.co.uk

Australia: Anthony J. Harvey
Journal of Business Continuity
Phone: 0011-613-953-0055-8
fax: 0011-613-953-0528
sector@notability.com.au

Japan: Shinji Hosotsubo
Quake Japan Co., Ltd.
Phone: 03-3215-2880
fax: 03-3215-2881

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Hard Times in the Big Easy
Sprint Nextel Response to Hurricane Katrina

By KEVIN C. MILLER

Contract security professionals take a break in their make-shift home in Sprint City, located near Baton Rouge. Business continuity team members have had to be creative in getting supplies into the camp, which is operating 24x7. They have used the corporate jet to fly pillows, towels, sheets and other supplies into the area in order to make the temporary facility as close to home as possible. Caterers from Florida, a full-time nurse and a stray dog found in New Orleans all live in the camp in addition to over 300 Sprint Nextel employees and over 60 security guards used to protect the camp and escort repair crews into New Orleans.

Even two weeks after it made landfall and more than 70 miles inland, Hurricane Katrina’s destructive force was evident. Driving through Baton Rouge, large trees were uprooted or snapped in two, signs were battered, and utility crews worked to repair infrastructure in the 95-degree heat.
Located a few miles southeast of the city, the Greater Baton Rouge State Fairgrounds has cancelled its annual state fair. The reason? The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and a number of companies were using the spacious area as a staging ground for the recovery efforts in New Orleans. Among those companies was Sprint Nextel Corp., created from the merger of Sprint and Nextel Communications, which closed just 18 days before Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Sprint Nextel’s command post, dubbed Sprint City by employees, could best be described as a pseudo-M.A.S.H. unit, complete with a mess tent, showers, approximately 40 RVs and a helicopter, which was used for initial damage assessments.
Even before Katrina made landfall, Sprint Nextel was positioning its resources for recovery. Four days ahead of time, the newly merged company began pre-staging assets in Shreveport, La. As the hurricane approached, the business continuity office made sure all essential personnel were aware of their role. Within three days of the hurricane slamming into the Gulf coast, Sprint Nextel had its camp up and running.
“Within 72 hours, we had operational staging in place to handle up to 300 people,” said Greig Fennell, director, business continuation, Sprint Nextel. “We were able to pull in resources from all over the United States.”
The company estimated that the storm will cost $150-200 million net of expected insurance proceeds, with the bulk of expenses due to damages to its network infrastructure, retail operations, as well as billing relief for impacted customers. The scope of the expected expenses made this a high-priority recovery effort.
“It’s pretty close to a worst-case scenario,” said Fennell. “It is the largest escalation we’ve had in a long time. Our wireless and long distance networks were really impacted. The only thing worse would be a major earthquake in Los Angeles or San Francisco.”
The damage Sprint experienced, including cell sites, switches, retail stores, etc. – out of service, was enormous. Damages to the Nationwide Sprint PCS Network, the Nextel National Network, its long distance network, and local telephone services were spread across a 90,000 square mile three-state region the size of Great Britain.
From Sprint City, Fennell and his crew of business continuity teams handled the deployment of repair teams into the affected areas. Each morning a seemingly endless stream of trucks headed into New Orleans, returning at night. The Sprint Nextel business continuity office set up an incident command structure (ICS) at Sprint City to coordinate the enterprise-wide recovery, and ensure the company’s employees responding to the disaster were safe and well cared for.
Per pre-approved protocol, Fennell assumed the role of overall “incident commander,” while appropriate SMEs from all parts of the newly formed company filled their Sprint City ICS roles of security officer, safety officer, communications officer, logistics officer, etc. This structure allowed for clear authority and safe, efficient operations. Twenty-four hour doctor/nurse support on-site for vaccinations, medical support and daily situational health procedures, catering, showers, toilets, WAN/LAN, mobile command center, access to company jets for re-supply, and employee rotation. All of this showed top-level management commitment to Sprint Nextel’s employees and customers.
The network operations BCP team met every night to determine what was repaired during the day and what should be a priority the following day. Each morning they updated headquarters about the progress and sent out technicians. Complicating the recovery, from the start, was the violence and health concerns in the city.
“We weren’t able to deploy our technicians for the first two days,” said Fennell. “We saw the coverage on CNN and had to ask, ‘How safe is it to deploy our employees into New Orleans?’”
Fennell explained that Sprint Nextel had a normal corporate policy of not deploying armed guards even in retail stores. “We needed to protect our people and we had to change that policy due to the circumstances,” he said. Fennell worked with senior executives and it was determined that the technicians would need to have armed guards when working in certain areas in the city.
While all of this was being accomplished, the two formerly separate companies were putting the finishing touches on a merger, which became official on Aug. 12. In fact, the merger may have contributed to the high-level of preparation. The two business continuity offices had been meeting since June, and in July they conducted a tabletop exercise with the newly-formed enterprise incident management team and the senior management from the two companies. Fennell and Lou DiSerafino, then director of the Nextel’s business continuity office, effectively partnered in pulling the two business continuity programs together for the exercise. The scenario – a hurricane making landfall in Florida. Based on the results of that exercise, they were able to build an incident response plan for the soon-to-be merged companies.
“We were preparing for the hurricane season throughout the summer. Both teams recognized early on that we needed to have a plan in place if we were to successfully make it through November,” said DiSerafino, now director of enterprise risk management, Sprint Nextel. “Our teams came up with scenarios that not only worked in a blueprint, but came to life when the moment called for it.”
“The incident response plan was our No. 1 priority based on the fact that we were entering hurricane season,” said Fennell. “We looked at the processes and teams from each company, compared and contrasted them, and found the gaps. When Katrina hit, the exercise was still fresh in everyone’s mind. We were ready to go.”
According to Fennell, since many of the post-merger details and responsibilities were still being ironed out, the Katrina response had two members for most recovery team positions. As the recovery proceeded, everyone’s roles became more clearly defined.
One area where there was no overlap was the Sprint Nextel emergency response team (ERT), which was essential in providing a means of communication to first responders affected by Hurricane Katrina with mobile phones. The ERT’s mission was to provide personnel, equipment, and infrastructure to enhance and assist the responding agencies. They’ve responded to 19 presidentially declared disasters in the last three years. The ERT was one of the first groups to arrive in Louisiana for Sprint Nextel.
There will be many changes to the company’s future planning efforts based on the Katrina experience. For example, Fennell noted that it was difficult to purchase equipment, supplies, and services needed for recovery. Since power and telecommunications were down in much of the region, corporate credit cards were not practical and with many banks closed, cash was rare. The solution was to have certain employees travel with cash into the devastated areas.
“The most difficult thing is staying ahead of the curve from a logistical standpoint,” said Fennell. “Ice, blankets and towels were flown in because local resources for such items were stretched thin.”
Other issues that arose included maintaining continuity as personnel were rotated in and out of the recovery effort and locating suitable facilities for the recovery.
As they proceded with the recovery, the command center was moved to a warehouse located closer to New Orleans on Sept. 17. Now called Sprint City 2, the 25,000-square-foot warehouse enabled them to house technicians and cut the commute time considerably. Fennell expected to continue the recovery effort for the remainder of the year.
“Sprint Nextel is committed to serving our communities in every way that we can and people are the most important asset,” said Fennell. “If we can’t provide them with the proper environment to do their work, then we failed.”

Kevin C. Miller has been a communications and journalism professional for 14 years including five years as a spokesman and journalist for the U.S. Coast Guard. He has been published in magazines and newspapers internationally and is currently the public relations coordinator for Strohl Systems, a global leader in the business continuity planning software and services market. He can be reached at (800) 634-2016, (610) 768-4120 or kmiller@strohlsystems.com.