Sidebar: Iron Mountain Says Its Data Archives Seem Mostly Intact

Firm begins to inspect four area storage facilities

By Lucas Mearian

September 12, 2005 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Iron Mountain Inc. said last week that it had begun inspecting its four off-site data storage facilities in the New Orleans area and had yet to find any computer disks or tapes that were directly damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
However, Bob Brennan, president of Iron Mountain North America, said he could not guarantee customers that the media stored in the facilities is completely undamaged. In a statement posted on its Web site last Tuesday, meanwhile, the company said it can't "determine to what extent [archived data] has been compromised until a full evaluation can be completed."
Workers from Boston-based Iron Mountain were unable to enter any of the facilities for more than a week because the areas around the buildings were cordoned off due to flooding. The company wasn't allowed to access the last of the facilities until Friday.
The four buildings contain archived data from about 600 customers. Brennan said that a recovery team has begun removing tapes and disks from the storage vaults and transporting them to facilities in Baton Rouge.
There was no "substantial" flooding in any of the first three buildings that Iron Mountain accessed, Brennan said. The company said the fourth facility also appeared to be relatively unscathed.
Iron Mountain has set up a command and control center in Atlanta to coordinate its operations in the disaster area. And the company is learning some lessons for managing future crisis situations. "One of the things I'll ask for in the future is that we have a deeper [contact] tree on the next of kin for all of our employees, so we have more ways to get in touch with them," said Brennan. He noted that Iron Mountain located the last of its 107 New Orleans-area employees last Wednesday.

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