Hancock Bank has been running its IT operations from a building in Gulfport, Miss., that housed its training staff before the hurricane, said Rodney Sandoz, senior technology officer at the bank.

The bank's headquarters building, which includes its data center, was rendered uninhabitable by the hurricane. Until Nov. 11, Hancock used hot sites in Chicago and Atlanta to keep its systems running. None of the bank's hardware was damaged in the storm, and it recovered all of its data, but Sandoz said officials are trying to better prepare for future emergencies.

"We are in the process of reviewing what we did and making plans to have a smoother transition," Sandoz said. He added that the strategy will include replicating critical files and information to lessen the downtime associated with data backup-and-restore operations.

In addition, the bank is eyeing satellite communications to augment its voice-over-IP network as part of an effort to avoid losing telecommunications capabilities if carrier networks are damaged. Sandoz said that as recently as late November, some of Hancock's 110 branches were still experiencing telecommunications problems. "When those circuits went down, we couldn't communicate except by radio phone," he said.