Disaster Recovery

The Secretary of State's office takes Disaster Recovery very seriously having hired a private company to assess the preparedness of the various state registries to respond to a disaster. This type of planning requires a tremendous amount of effort, so it is often overcome by events. There always seems to be something more pressing - another customer, another phone call - than spending the time necessary to come up with a Disaster Recovery Plan. One reason so much effort is involved is that there are so many things that can happen. Scenarios range from the failure of a computer server to the outright destruction of the building from fire, natural disaster or some other means. We have good reason to take this all very seriously in Lowell since our building was the site of a terrorist bombing back in 1976. Back then, it was a radical group called the Weathermen, but their explosives were just as devastating as those used by today's terrorists. Yesterday we had an all day planning session in Boston to begin updating and improving our existing plan. As the experts say, "No one plans to fail, but if you fail to plan you will fail" or something like that. Enjoy the weekend, and if you're in Lowell on Sunday morning, stay away from the Merrimack River. The Baystate Marathon will cause the closure of many of the city's bridges until well after noon.