"Failure is Not an Option"
Some things you just "gotta" have, and one is the ability to call the people you need to after a disaster. Remember, whether you are a commercial or government entity, an emergency response plan truly means life or death—both in terms of your organization and your people. Can you restore the communications necessary to recover and to conduct business as usual?
Surprisingly, few organizations are prepared to recover what the military calls "4Ci" (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and intelligence) after a catastrophic event.
Even fewer are truly prepared to conduct business with their customers by phone after a disaster. You must have one to have the other. You must establish 4Ci, no matter what the circumstances, as the first step in any emergency response.
The technology exists today to do this. However, we must first consider the common problems faced by all organizations immediately following a disaster to deploy it effectively.