A Look Back At Superstorm Sandy

Lim Dynamics Founder, David Lim, looks back at Superstorm Sandy …

It was nine years ago today when Superstorm Sandy hit NYC resulting in loss of life, loss of economic activity and severe damage to homes, businesses, infrastructure and more.

At the time, my office for the company I was working for was located below 34th Street in Manhattan and when Sandy hit, most areas below 34th Street down to Lower Manhattan were without power that evening. I lost power at home and my office was without power. Cell service was choppy and it was a time before we had all these portable batteries to charge our mobile devices. I remember draining my laptop batteries to try and keep my phone charged in the event I could get a signal which was very hit or miss. Staying in contact with work and co-workers for updates was virtually impossible without reliable phone or Internet service.

Many of our key systems were in-house and without power, we had no access to e-mail, servers etc. for an entire work week. Business literally came to a standstill. When power was restored at week’s end, I remember going to the office on the weekend to check all our key systems and see if any systems were affected by the power outage. While we did have battery backups on our key systems, those backups were designed to run for a short period of time to allow for the proper shutdown of those systems. No one expected the power loss we experienced in Manhattan below 34th Street due to Superstorm Sandy.

The impact of Superstorm Sandy on the business was unquestionably eye-opening and made the company realize how vulnerable having all its key systems in-house was.

As a result of Superstorm Sandy, the company did begin migrating some and eventually most key systems, which were previously in-house, to offsite, hosted or cloud-based systems/solutions. This eliminated the dependence on having the office constantly accessible and operational in order for key systems to operate and allowed the business greater flexibility for most employees to work remotely and have access to e-mail, shared files etc. from anywhere in the event the office was inaccessible or unable to operate normally.

It’s important for businesses to evaluate and re-evaluate their current infrastructure, applying lessons learned from Superstorm Sandy as well as other severe weather events and unexpected emergency situations to determine whether their businesses are ready for future events and can continue operations during such events.

It’s too late to figure out and implement changes during the event. It’s vital that business owners be proactive and make the necessary investments and changes NOW so they are ready and prepared for anything that may occur in the future.