North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Martial Law declared in New Orleans Was: RE: Katrina could inundate New Orleans
Breaking news..Apparently a 200 foot section of levee broke last night and is gradually burying the city. Martial Law has been declared in the area as well. Overnight Levee Break: http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050830/NEWS05/50830005 Martial Law: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/08/breaking-news-martial-law-declared-in.php -- Martin Hannigan (c) 617-388-2663 VeriSign, Inc. (w) 703-948-7018 Network Engineer IV Operations & Infrastructure [email protected] > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of > Matthew Kaufman > Sent: Monday, August 29, 2005 11:47 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: RE: Katrina could inundate New Orleans > > > > Dave Stewart: > > Y'know... I do have to wonder whether Internet access is > > nearly as important as power and communications (traditional > > comms, such as the PTSN). > > > > Granted, it'll be interesting to see how things shake out - > > but I just can't buy that getting the Internet working > > should/will be a really high priority. > > Back when I was running ISPs, we had several county and city Emergency > Operations Centers as customers... Either on T1 or frame > relay for their > primary service, or as their "backup" dial-on-demand ISDN > provider. These > connections were how the EOC got river gauge data for planning flood > evacuations (at the time, no other source other than having > the numbers read > off from the state-level agency office over the phone if they > weren't too > busy), USGS earthquake epicenter (also available over EDIS) > and shake map > (Internet only) data, weather service radar and satellite > images (backup was > TV broadcasts, if still on the air), and in some counties, > the only access > to the hospital emergency room status tracking system used for > multi-casualty incidents... While there's more private data > networks online > now, there's also more Internet-available data that the EOCs > would like to > have access to, I'm sure (I know that some cities are using > Internet-connected webcams to do security monitoring, look at > shorelines, > etc.) > > In many incident scenarios (and a few actual incidents), the > priority was > that the radio system stayed up, then Internet access, *then* > PSTN (and > having cellphone access to people in the field to supplement the radio > system was more important than landline calls to anywhere > else). And power, > of course, is easily generated locally, so not a big priority at all. > > Interestingly, almost none of the agencies told sales what > the connection > was going to be used for... Only when engineering made a > followup inquiry > would we learn that, yes, in an emergency, they'd like theirs > fixed first > please, and yes, they'd need first dibs on the backup power > if we didn't > have enough to run everything. > > Matthew Kaufman > [email protected] > > >
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