To assess your own readiness, you need to have the courage to consider the following hypothetical situation: if there were 5 people at the site of a devastating incident, do you know what tasks the other 4 people will be responsible for? If your mind begins to ponder over possible responses, compare your answers with the answers someone else might come up with. If your responses for the 5 critical measures and responsibilities differ, then we've got a big problem because that just highlights that we don't have the blueprint telling us what is going to happen in the event of a disaster.

To borrow the famous line from the Ghostbusters, 'Who you gonna call?" in the event of an emergency and more importantly, will they know what to do?

Many people wrote in saying that in the aftermath of the crisis at the Marriott, there were more volunteers than formal agencies. This could be simply an eyewitness account, but the reality of the situation is this: most of the work done in the recent past with respect to utilizing technology, has been done through volunteers. Remember the number of private enterprises who played critical roles in coordinating relief efforts for the 2005 earthquake? How many young kids set up websites to coordinate and pool the information for better, more efficient management of resources? If volunteers have the ingenuity and access to creativity, then they need to be part of the plan.

You Don't Have to Look Too Far: LMKR and Business Continuity

Most companies operating in this building conduct business across the globe, providing offshore services. Uninterrupted service is imperative for the survival of these companies. Service companies were left with communication breakdowns, valuable loss of business-critical data and in a few instances, the lack of alternate operational facilities. LMKR was one of the companies that was victim to the fateful episode and was faced with the challenge of preserving its business.