ENTERGY VERSUS KATRINA

ENTERGY CORPORATION RECOVERS FROM HURRICANE

KATRINA

 Hurricane Katrina was the costliest natural disaster in the

history of the united states. A least 1,245 people died in
the hurricane and subsequent floods. Total property
damage was estimated at $108 billion.

Entergy is a $10B energy company located in downtown

New Orleans and supplies power and gas to many people.

Entergy has a disaster recovery plan that's tested and

revised once a year. 2015s "test" came in the form of

hurricane Ivan. Entergy needs to be to restore power to its
customers but also prevent business interruption.

AUGUST 25TH, 2005 STORM NOTICED, PLAN BEGINS

Hurricane Katrina was noticed by the company, but was
predicted to hit several hundred miles east of New Orleans.
Their it staff started making storm calls and made the
decision to activate the disaster recovery plan, which calls
for some preliminary actions to be taken beginning 72 hours
before a hurricane is scheduled to make landfall.
Entergy's primary data center is located near downtown New
Orleans, across the river from Entergy's corporate
headquarters. This data center has back-up generators,
which had never failed before.

AUGUST 26TH RECOVERY TEAMS AND STORM BOSS

Entergys first team to the active disaster recovery site
Entergy has in Little Rock, Ark. Once the first team
arrived safely, a second was deployed.
Shortly after the decision was made to do a full
implementation of the disaster recovery plan and
Entergys core restoration team flew into action, led by
Randy Helmick, VP of customer service and support
during normal operations but given the title of "storm
boss" when an emergency is declared.

AUGUST 28TH CIO SAVES CRITICAL SYSTEMS

Entergys CIO took control of their storm command

center a.k.a. "The power house" in Jackson, MS. On. As
outlined in the disaster recovery plan, the CIO prepared
the company systems that would be most critical in the
restoration of electricity - outage recording and
management applications - to run off the active
disaster recovery site.

AUGUST 29TH RUNNING ON GENERATORS

Entergys primary data center lost commercial power

and back-up generators were sustaining serious
damage from wind and debris. CIO declared an
emergency with its vendor sungard to reserve capacity
at its hot site facility should they not be able to
replicate systems in little rock.

AUGUST 30TH POWER FAILURE, COMMUNITY SUPPORT

Total power failure in area hit by hurricane Katrina. Entergy sends
an expeditionary force to the primary data center to survey the
damage.
"When we sent people out to the data centers in those first few
days, when there was no food or water yet, you couldnt tell who
wore what badge. It didnt matter, we were all working together,"
Entergy CIO Ray Johnson says; but there was support within the
business community "all of our vendors and even some weve
never worked with were there within a couple of days saying,
what do you need? How can we help?.
Entergys most critical applications were successfully brought
online in the active disaster recovery site from backup tapes sent

AUGUST 31ST GETTING BACK ONLNIE

Primary data center generator back online, bringing in

a generator from another facility as backup.
Entergy brought in a contractor to patch up the roof
and by Friday had it up and running again. All critical
and medium-priority applications had been restored at
the primary data center and the disaster recovery
team worked to continue to get all "normal" systems
up and stabilized.

AFTERMATH
The disaster recovery plan was excellent, but not restrictive. "We never follow the plan
the letter," said Johnson. "In the IT space, the plan is very solid in terms of what we have
to do. But were always working our core IT staff in conjunction with representatives
from the business areas -- to see if we need to change priorities."
Entergy also focused on locating its 2,800 employees, including the 700 men and
women working in it. Johnson says: One of the first things we did was to try to contact
everyone . to find out, are you ok? Do you know the status of your home? Do you
have any urgent needs that arent being met?" Ultimately everyone was located and
there were no fatalities.
Entergy found a temporary company HQ. The IT team was charged with getting the
telecom and IT infrastructure in place. The enterprise business continuity team, having
located all employees either by phone or internet, began to assist those who could
return to work in finding temporary housing in the area.

REFERENCES
overby, S. (2005, september 16). Lessons from hurricane katrina: it pays to have a
disaster recovery plan in place. Retrieved september 29, 2016, from
http://www.Cio.Com/article/2448478/security0/lessons-from-hurricane-katrina--itpays-to-have-a-disaster-recovery-plan-in-place.Html