City officials saw disaster preparedness as a job for another day. Then Katrina struck. In the six months since the hurricane blew apart the city, New Orleans officials have been improvising a plan to put its information infrastructure back together. Here
Officials at every level treat disaster planning as a long-term problem that can be left for another day. But in New Orleans, that day came—on Aug. 29, 2005—as Hurricane Katrina washed away the city.
But over the last six months, New Orleans information technology chief Greg Meffert has been improvising a plan to not only put the Crescent City's technology infrastructure back together, but to make it better than it was before.
Meffert's story holds valuable lessons for any chief information officer struggling with disaster planning and recovery.
