home of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes and most recently a devastated area of flooding in the Midwest. In the last week Iowa City and Cedar Rapids (sister city) both experienced some very severe weather and flooding with the major impact felt by Cedar Rapids. Thousands of people here were forced to evacuate their homes and businesses regardless of their state of readiness.
This is my second experience with flooding in this area (previously experienced the flood in 2003) as well as a few other weather related events and I feel that this experience validates to me the importance of a few very key things related to technology, communications, and the web. I would like to share this with you so that in the event you run into a similar situation, you can rest assured that you have planned in advance and will be able to communicate and use your technology to the extent possible, not the extent that happens without planning.

Have a Back-Up Plan

and/or alternate place for Web Servers in a remote physical location.
I am a firm believer in copying information on jump and external drives, but if they are in the same physical location as the native files, they may also be lost, damaged, or destroyed. Seriously consider online back-up storeage in a separate geographical location. My web server is in California, so if I go down in Iowa my websites are unphased. If California goes down I have external storeage and can transfer to a local server.

Communication is Key:

Have several lines of communication available because chances are some will go down.
Include the following in your communication arsenal – internet, satellite, landline, GIS, VoIP, SMS or text messaging, and anything else that is available. Keep detailed lists with you of all your important numbers and access information and make sure its up to date!

Use Web 2.0 Technology to Provide Easily Accessible Information

If you haven’t planned ahead and your website goes down – open a blog at blogger and keep everyone up to date on what is going on. As the University of Iowa lost power in some of their buildings they jumped on the Web 2.0 bandwagon and opened a flood blog to keep everyone informed. They also opened a Flikr Photostream to upload daily photos of the action on campus.

Use an Email Management System and/or Electronic Mail Lists for Group Communication

 ADA contacted IDA our state association to provide assistance and support. To reach our members we sent out messages using our Google lists, our website and our Constant Contact program. Members were pleased to hear our offer of support. Let your people know that you are concerned and can help!

Use Video to Stream & Record the Action

At one of the University of Iowa Engineering buildings there was a live webcam recording the flood action which allowed everyone to see the increasing river levels over the week. Opps… it went down when the building lost power. Refer to ” Have a back-up plan ” above.

Keep Your Sense of Humor

No technology required!

Nadine