Friday, November 9, 2012

Planes, Trains, and Hurricanes

I’m back. 

Whether news of my return prompts applause or eye rolling for many of you, my sabbatical from commenting on all things accounting and political in this space was prompted by the quinella of a heavy travel schedule and the unwanted influence of two women named Sandy and Athena.

After being marooned in Florida whilst Superstorm Sandy inflicted damage of biblical-like proportions on the East Coast — particularly New York and New Jersey (and left many without power including yours truly for a week) — I was forced to fly to a neighboring state on my return due to the fact that both JFK and LaGuardia airports resembled water parks, and then I rented a car to drive home.

Exactly three days later, I flew to California for another conference as a vicious nor’easter by the name of Athena dumped as much as a foot of snow on the already storm-ravaged area. Not surprisingly, my flight back during the peak of the system was diverted to Detroit where the kindly Delta agent gave me a miniscule pillow, a razor-thin blanket and pointed to all the available floor space that would serve as my impromptu hotel room for the night.

Now, don’t misconstrue this as a complaint; over the last two weeks I have heard horror stories that make my experiences seem like a week at a spa. People watching their entire houses wash away into the Atlantic, offices being flooded and closed for two weeks, and falling trees separating people’s kitchens from their living rooms were sadly all too common.

It was about then the words “disaster recovery” began replaying in my head.

I wondered how many CPA firms had learned a hard lesson during Tropical Storm Irene, which had hit the year before and took several weeks to get back online. If there was ever a case for going paperless and to the cloud, this was it.

Each year, it seems disaster recovery appears at or near the top of the list of top technology issues among CPAs, but how many firms have made a cogent attempt to implement one? “It will never happen to me” or “it was a freak occurrence” just doesn’t ring true anymore.

The fact that the Northeast is 2-0 over Florida in hurricanes over the past year should be sort of a strong indicator that that Sandy and Athena may in fact be the new normal and we’d better be ready with regard to business continuity.

In full disclosure, I’m hardly one to lecture and wag my finger as we still don’t have a generator at Chez Carlino. However that’s changing effective this weekend as an electrician is coming over to make our circuit box generator-ready followed by a trip to the Home Depot to pick out whatever models are still in stock.

Frankly I’m tired of getting dressed in the morning using my iPhone flashlight app.

No comments:

Post a Comment