Re: Talk about bad luck (Halifax)

From: John Smith (a_at_nonymous.com)
Date: 09/29/03 

Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 13:51:01 GMT

JF Mezei wrote:
> Halifax Canada, well north of the tropics, has just been hit with a
> category 1 hurricane. While this is not a big deal for areas build in
> hurricane zones, when a densely populated city which hasn't had such
> a storm in half a century gets hit, a lot of damage is possible.
>
> It is still early to get full report of the damage (this area is not
> built to widthstand such a storm). However, there is one big sad
> story:
>
> There is at least one fatality. A tree fell onto an ambulance just as
> it was pulling in near the hospital. Talk about bad luck.
>
> Environment Canada had to vacate their offices on the 16th floor of
> an office building for a while, at at that point, "control" was
> handed over to another weather office in Fredericton NB. I was
> listening to radio when the staff were allowed to go back to their
> Environment Canada offices. They seemed to have generators because
> the staff were right back into their terminals pulling information
> out to give to the media. One rep was able to pull "live" information
> from one of the boueys some 120 nautical miles south of Halifax which
> was clocking winds of 145km/h and waves of 13 metres. (40 feet).
> Pretty amazing that they would retain links to those sensors.
>
> The lesson ? Even cities that seem to be quite safe in terms of
> weather can get some severe weather at times. And those cities may be
> the least prepared and thus the most vulnerable to damage when such a
> storm happens.
>
> While hurricanes in the USA tend to just skirt the coast and are
> rarely destructive over a large area, the cyclones that hit Australia
> can be pretty nasty (I lived through a cat 4) and the typhoons that
> hit asian cities will also cause major flooding over wide areas. This
> means that in terms of disaster recovery, one may really need the
> distance of a few hundred km that VMS is capable of.
>
> Oh, if you have vehicles that may be used in an emergency, best to
> keep a fresh can of fuel because in cases of widespread power
> failures, you won't be able to refuel a vehicle since gas/petrol
> stations won't be functional.

I'll ignore the sweeping generalization about whether hurricanes cause or
don't cause damage in non-costal areas of the USA (clearly they do), the
point I believe JF is making is about disaster tolerance.

Which is something HP ought to be doing with prospective *new* VMS and
existing VMS customers. But they don't.

<soapbox>
Forgive me for saying so, but every so often a comment/observation is
posted here which makes eminent sense even if it is poorly communicated (ie.
disaster tolerance issues and whatnot). Yet many times we (collectively) are
quick to snipe at some inconsistency in the message rather than embracing
the heart of the message.

But to some extent I can understand that too. Most here are reasonably well
aware of DT issues, and by now also realize that getting HP to do ANYTHING
substantive in the way of advertising, marketing, or promoting VMS is a lost
cause. So we ignore the opportunity to take a run at our HP reps and
contacts to pressure them to do said advertising.

Day after day and instance after instance, there are golden examples of
where VMS disaster tolerance and security can be leveraged into an
advertising and marketing bonanza -- but it isn't done.

I just wonder how Marcello, Gorham, and all above them in the HP heirarchy
can look at themselves while shaving (faces or legs) each day and think that
they are doing a good job.
</soapbox>

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