Rizwan Ahmed, CIO at the Louisiana state government's Office of Group Benefits in Baton Rouge, said Katrina was "more of an eye-opener for the folks who were in the business area" than it was for many IT staffs. "They always thought that somehow IT people will get things magically done," Ahmed said.

SIDEBAR

Sidebar: New Orleans IT vet: Workers come first

IT employees throughout the University of California's 10 campuses and administrative offices know firsthand what earthquakes can do.

But the university system's IT leaders, whose units support some 121,000 faculty members and employees, still felt they could learn something more about natural disasters from New Orleans' experience last summer.