7.8 Magnitude “Shakeout” in California Yesterday

Yesterday the United States Geological Survey (USGS) conducted a “Shakeout” drill in which a magnitude 7.8 earthquake was simulated in Southern California.

USGS states: “Although imaginary, the Shakeout Scenario is based on scientists’ best predictions of what would actually occur during and after a major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault.” Such a quake is expected in the next 30 years. This video from the Associated Press covers part of the drill.

What about economic impact?

Buried in the report is this prediction: “The largest long-term economic disruption comes from damage to the water distribution system. Damage to this system will be so extensive that some areas will have to replace the whole system, and some buildings will be without water for as long as 6 months. The direct and indirect business interruption costs attributed to the lack of water will be $50 billion.”

It may be a surprise, but lacking water, air conditioning can become impossible and sewerage cannot operate so many buildings cannot remain open. This is not only a practical reality but a legal one as well.

When Katrina struck New Orleans, buildings which were relatively undamaged had to be closed because utilities were unavailable. These buildings remained closed for 3 months. The impact on many small businesses was severe.

How can businesses be prepared?

Businesses in some industries, like manufacturing, will need to recover from a disaster by restoring their place of business to working order. Manufacturing is only 12% of the US economy, and services account for 70% of our GDP. Even within manufacturing some of the value added is in add-on services. We believe that better than 80% of our production could continue after a disaster if our business systems were sufficiently resilient.

Today nearly all of the Fortune 2000 use virtualized systems which allow portability of business “workloads”. A “workload” is essentially a server providing email, databases or applications. These big companies have plans in place which enable virtualized workloads to be relocated from primary data centers to redundant facilities – thus ensuring business continuity after a disaster.

Implementing virtualization and systems redundancy is complex and costly. Global Data Vault offers Failover. Failover provides the required portability and redundancy to small and mid-sized businesses as a service. For as little as $75 per month small companies can protect their systems and provide economic assurance to employees, customers, vendors, and shareholders. For more information, visit our Failover page.