- A: Where Will You Meet After a Disaster?
- B: Make Your Phone Numbers Follow You
- C: Recognize the Benefits and Pitfalls of Wireless Phones
- D: Consider Two-Way Radios
- E: Carry Pagers
- F: Large Campus? Consider a Low-Power AM Broadcast Station
- G: Who Will Clean Up the Mess?
- H: Who Rewires the Building?
- I: Consult a Commercial Disaster-Recovery Center
- J: Are Your People Willing to Leave Town in a Disaster?
- K: What If Some People Dont Show Up?
- L: Does Everyone Know How to Get to the Recovery Center?
- M: Test Your Recovery Center
- N: Do You Know How to Use the Recovery Center Phones?
- O: Whos in Charge of the Recovery?
- P: Keeping the EMT Apprised
- Q: Who Will Retrieve Data Stored Offsite?
- R: Consider Online Vaulting
- S: Where Is Your Voice Mail System?
- T: Look Carefully at Automated Call Distribution Units
- U: Dont Expect Anything to Work the First Time After a Disaster
- V: Where Will You Get Telecommunications Test Equipment?
- W: For Want of a Nail
- X: Seen Any Good Books Lately?
- Y: Could You Work at the Recovery Center for a Long Time?
- Z: What Did You Learn From Your Last Test?
- Summary: What Did You Learn from This Series?
M: Test Your Recovery Center
Issue: Most commercial recovery centers do an excellent job of staffing with onsite employees. These centers make extensive use of matrix switching for telecommunications, however, which can be complicated to figure out without a helping hand. And remember, the recovery center is not yours alone. Others will have been there since the last time you were, and they probably have changed configurations of various common components.
Action: When testing a plan, or during an actual activation in an emergency, document the condition and usability of the recovery center. After all, your organization is paying a lot of money for permission to use it. Was the necessary equipment in a usable configuration? Were diagrams available to technical personnel to assist in setup of the equipment? Were recovery center personnel available and knowledgeable? If not, you need to solve these problems before the next disaster.