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 &
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Richard L. Arnold, CBCP
richard@drj.com

SENIOR EDITOR
Janette Ballman
janette@drj.com

MANAGING EDITOR
Jon Seals
jon@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
Patrick Corcoran, IBM Bus. Cont. & Rec. Services
Jeff Dato, MBCP, KPMG
Edward S. Devlin, E.S. Devlin & Associates
Judith Eckles, SunGard Availability Services
James Hammill, CBCP, JMH Consulting Inc.
John Jackson, Independant


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

Brazil: Jose Carlos Ferreira
Disaster Recovery Mercosul
Phone: 55 11 3666-9506
conc2000@uol.com.br
www.drms.com.br

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The Role of Executives in Managing A Crisis


By ED DEVLIN, CBCP

In selecting issues to be discussed for this column, I considered the many recent (non-physical damage) “crises” that are occurring, such as: Don Carty’s Executive Bonus Plan at American Airlines, The New York Times’ recent reporter problem, and SARS and its effects throughout the world, medically and economically.
But then we had a string of disasters (physical damage) to consider as well. At the point this column is being written, we are well into the “tornado season” and fast approaching the “hurricane season.” Terrorism is a high profile concern. So I chose to deal with these issues now, and hold the “non-physical damage crises” for the next issue.

The Tornado Season
Tornadoes, tornadoes, tornadoes! People in the Midwest and the South have had it with tornadoes.
On May 5-6, a swarm of tornadoes slashed through the nation’s midsection. Buildings in Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee were knocked off their foundations, trees uprooted and power lines felled. In Pierce City, Mo., a town of 1,400, there was not a home or business untouched. Ten people were found dead in the rubble of the town’s National Guard Armory. The building was virtually leveled. Ironically, they had gone to the armory to find shelter from the storms.
On May 8, a tornado swept through Oklahoma City. More than 100 people were injured in the Oklahoma City area, 20 critically. The tornado struck just as the afternoon rush hour was beginning. The tornado sirens sounded just before 5 p.m. It touched down in suburban Moore 15 minutes later. It then moved over Interstate 35 and a mall before moving into two more suburbs, Midwest City and Del City. It did significant damage to a recently renovated General Motors plant. About 37,000 customers in the area were without power. The tornado was reminiscent of the 1999 tornado that tore through the Oklahoma City area killing 44. Some of those very same areas were hit again.
Strong winds from the same storm system also tore off roofs in eastern Kansas and may have caused a train derailment. In Lawrence, Kan., tornadoes tore roofs off homes and apartment buildings. There were no reports of injuries.
On May 11, Mother’s Day, tornadoes tore their way across Kentucky and Illinois and continued a record-breaking count of 395 tornadoes that had been sighted across the country during the first 10 days of May. Over Mother’s Day weekend, tornadoes touched down in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin. The storms broke a record set in 1999, when 188 tornadoes struck the nation from May 1-10.
At least 48 people have died in the tornadoes, according to news reports. By comparison, there were an average of 44 tornado deaths per year in 2000-02.

Hurricane Season Fast Approaching!
The National Weather Service also announced a major improvement in issuing hurricane forecasts. Improved technology will allow accurate, longer-range outlooks, which will be useful for those who need more time to relocate. This year it will issue five-day hurricane forecasts, instead of the old three-day advisories. The Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1 and ends Nov. 30.

Terrorism
While there is no terrorism “season,” there are certainly a number of current stories related to terrorism.
As of May 15, a set of keys that unlock gates and offices at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a nuclear-weapons facility, are still missing. Livermore guards discovered April 17 that the keys were missing. According to Lab Spokeswoman Susan Houghton, they have yet to be located. Houghton said there had been no indications of any attempts to access the lab with the missing keys, one of about 200 such sets. For security reasons, she could not say how many locks the missing keys would unlock. Officials have since changed the most important locks and said that national security was not compromised. Lab officials have begun internal investigations to determine whether the keys were stolen or simply misplaced. The House Energy and Commerce Committee will ask the Energy Department’s inspector general to investigate. “We are reviewing this aggressively and making the necessary improvements to our key handling and storage procedures,” said Lab Director Michael Anastasio.
Clean up completed at Washington, DC’s Brentwood facility – The postal facility that closed on Oct. 21, 2001, because of contamination from anthrax-laced letters, was finally cleaned up on March 5, 2003. Washington’s main mail-processing and distribution center should reopen this summer. The postal facility processed the contaminated letters sent to members of the Senate. Two postal workers died after contracting anthrax; several became ill. All other employees took medication to prevent contracting the disease. This was the largest decontamination effort ever undertaken in the U.S. Workers spent months sealing and cleaning the 17-million-cubic-foot building. Chlorine dioxide gas was used to decontaminate the site. The work is being reviewed by a committee including members from the post office, the Armed Forces Radiobiological Research Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the District of Columbia Department of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The facility, and eventually all mail-sorting and distribution centers, will receive new biohazard-detection and air-filtering systems. (The Brentwood center has been renamed in memory of the two postal workers who died of anthrax, Joseph Curseen Jr. and Thomas Morris Jr.).

Ed Devlin, CBCP, has provided business recovery planning consulting services since 1973 when he co-founded Devlin Associates. Since then, Devlin has assisted more than 300 companies in the writing of their business recovery plans and has made more than 800 seminars and presentations worldwide.
To comment on this article, go to 1603-devlin at www.drj.com/feedback.

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