Businesses in northern and central England have deployed
their
business continuity plans after sustained heavy rainfall
flooded offices and left IT centres inaccessible throughout the
region.
Insurers estimate that the cost to repair physical damage across
the country will run to £1bn. Among the organisations affected by
the floods were steel company
Sheffield Forgemasters
and Sheffield Chamber of
Commerce.
Keith Tilley, managing director at disaster recovery firm
SunGard Availability Services, said, "This is the biggest
multiple-company incident we have had after the 7 June London
bombings in 2005 and the Buncefield oil depot fire in 2006."
Staff at Sheffield Chamber of Commerce had to be winched to
safety by an RAF helicopter on Monday evening.
Director Stephen Mitchell, who was among those rescued, said
that although the chamber's systems were backed up regularly and
long-term damage would be minimal, it had been difficult to help
businesses with the crisis because the chamber's own IT system had
not been working. Parts of the e-mail system also had to be
replaced at a cost of up to £3,000.
Law firm
Irwin Mitchell relocated staff after the floods caused £1m in
damage to its Sheffield offices. Richard Hodkinson, group IT and
operations director, said that staff working at the offsite SunGard
disaster recovery centre managed to keep services to clients
running despite power disruptions.
"People worked well into the night, determined to get resolution
to these problems. It brought the best out for the IT team and
pulled them together," Hodkinson said.
EWS Railway's
datacentre south-east of Doncaster was also hit by the flooding.
CIO Guy Mason said, "Work on essential projects and strategy has
stopped, despite not losing systems. It is still a real cost."
The experience has brought the IT department and the users
closer together, he said. "I have never seen them talking together
more than this week."
David Fletcher, a director at investment company Creative
Sheffield, said, "Smaller companies may not survive this, but
larger companies will mostly pull through because they usually have
the financial resources."
John Sharp, policy and development director at business
continuity resource the Continuity Forum, said the floods had shown
that business continuity was essential for every business, no
matter what size or type.
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