Back to the Bunker
The US government is going to be performing business continuity testing in the middle of June, probably for the first time ever. Back to the Bunker explains some of the interesting choices for essential services that the government made during their risk assessment. Many of the decisions leave me wondering if they truly conducted a risk assessment or just “winged” it.
On Monday, June 19, about 4,000 government workers representing more than 50 federal agencies from the State Department to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will say goodbye to their families and set off for dozens of classified emergency facilities stretching from the Maryland and Virginia suburbs to the foothills of the Alleghenies. They will take to the bunkers in an “evacuation” that my sources describe as the largest “continuity of government” exercise ever conducted, a drill intended to prepare the U.S. government for an event even more catastrophic than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The government really needs to take some cues from the financial industry in regards to disaster recovery and business continuity. There are many lessons learned that could be put to good use in the creation of a well designed system for sustaining vital government operations in a major crisis.