Business continuity

Bangladesh in SMS cyclone alert system trial
Thousands of people in Bangladesh die each year as a result of cyclones; the government is testing am SMS disaster warning system
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Swine flu tally past 52,000
The United States remains the most infected country with 21,449 cases; biggest jump in cases was recorded in Canada
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DHS announces $1.8 billion in federal preparedness grants
Grants to states and localities aim to protect, prevent, respond, and recover from potential calamities this fiscal year
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Hosted model suitable for disaster recovery plans
Business continuity was once complex and costly; new services offer continuity and disaster recovery services which are less expensive, more technologically rich
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Scientists reveal swine flu origins
Oxford University researchers use computational methods to reconstruct the origins and timescale of this new pandemic; the latest swine flu strain has been circulating among pigs, possibly among multiple continents, for many years prior to its transmission to humans
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Motorola: Cellphones could offer a unified disaster alerts broadcasts
Motorola envisages using cellphones for emergency alerts even if most of a cellphone network is down; a new generation of cellphones that can rapidly form a peer-to-peer network when an emergency alert is broadcast
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New flood warning system developed
Researchers from the United Kingdom and China develop a software-based flood warning system which takes into account both climate change and corresponding hydrological effects
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Melting Greenland ice threatens northeast U.S., Canada
The melting of Greenland’s ice sheets is driving more and more water toward the already threatened coastlines of New York, Boston, Halifax, and other cities in the northeastern United States
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Flood-proofing New York City with storm barriers
New York City faces two problems with water: rising ocean level and surges created by hurricanes and Nor’easters; engineers propose a system of barriers to prevent New Orleans-like flooding
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Dutch researchers develop new virus detector
A prototype of a new system can detect within minutes if an individual is infected with a virus; the system carry out measurements many times faster than standard techniques, and it is also portable
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U.S. unprepared for severe solar storms
Mankind’s vulnerability to disruptions caused by severe solar storms has increased as a result of the increasing dependence of human societies on technology and electricity; a storm on the scale of the 1859 Carrington Event could damage the U.S. electrical grid to such an extent that vast regions of the country could be without power for weeks, perhaps months.
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Flu vaccine contracts worth $46.7 million awarded
Two companies awarded $46.7 million to supply influenza vaccine to the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and federal civilian agencies
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The government's new mail room // by Keith James
How CRF regulations overhaul mail security — and the keys to timely compliance
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U.S. reassesses safe water levels in New Orleans' outfall canals
New Orleans has three outfall canals, the role of which is similar to that of a storm drain under a city street; since Katrina, there have been disagreements among engineers as to how much water would it be safe for each of the three canals to handle during a storm
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How soon they forget: Organizational memory and effective policies // Jon Shamah
Large organizations, either in the private sector or public sector, always have a churning of staff; the problem is that within one or two cycles of churn, anecdotal knowledge, and other unwritten information, just gets lost from the organizational memory; when something bad happens, few people know those solutions which have proven to work in the past and those that have failed miserably
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