Memo for: Business Continuity Plan Management Committee
Subject: Minutes of
the
1. A meeting of the Business Continuity Plan Management Committee was held on
2. Attendance:
Ø
Present:
Susan Brooks, Becky Cawley, Rick Conboy,
Barbara Edwards, Ted Elling, Ray Galleno, Barry Godlewski, William Harper, Jon
Hawn, Tony Hoppa, Phil Jones, John Mack, Shannon Mason, Charlie Puckett, Mark
Reynolds,
Ø Absent: Kathi Baucom, Randy Duncan, Lee Gray, Carter Heath, Bill Hill, Michelle Howard, Tom Lamb, Steve Mosier, Lars Powell, Randy Ross, Laura Simic, Darin Spease, Doug Thomas
3. Main topics / issues:
A. Update on Critical Business Processes: Continuity of Operations Plans are in hand for all but one Critical Business Processes (CBP) with recovery time objectives of day-1 thru day-7. Overall, we have plans in hand for 27 of the 42 CBP’s.
B. Exercising the Plans.
(1) Planning for exercises continues. We have conducted two semi-live exercises and two communications-only exercises to date. We will concentrate on exercising CBP’s with RTO of day-1 thru 7. Morgan will meet with “owners” of the CBP to shape an effective exercise plan.
(2) Exercises can be in the form of tabletop, semi-live, or mock disaster drills. The intent is to get the maximum training benefit with minimum disruption of operations and least cost.
(3) It is important to document exercises. Not only will this be a matter of auditor interest, it will also give us a means to collect best practices and make necessary adjustments to our plans.
C. Power Failure. Charlie Puckett gave a presentation on electrical power distribution on campus. He outlined those areas served directly by Duke Power and those whose power comes through the University sub-station. PowerPoint slides from his presentation were disseminated to committee members via email. Key points from his presentation and the follow-on discussion were:
Ø Most facilities on campus do not have emergency generators of sufficient capacity to run more than emergency lighting systems.
Ø For older buildings (e.g., high rise residence halls), the emergency lighting is not very good. Flashlights should be on hand for RA’s and residents.
Ø It is also advisable for people to have a battery-powered radio in order to get updates on the local power situation, emergency shelters, etc, during regional blackouts.
Ø There will be no external lighting on campus (parking lots, walkways, etc.). This poses an additional safety risk until portable emergency lights can be acquired and deployed. Since the University does not own any of these, we should only be able to count on having them for planned power outages.
Ø The SAC may be the best place on campus for an emergency shelter for students, staff, and faculty since it has the largest emergency generator.
Ø Food service can operate out of two dining facilities that use natural gas and steam. Chartwells maintains a three-day supply of food on campus. Refrigerated and other perishable food will be consumed on day-1.
D. Emergency Response Plan. Jon Hawn reviewed experiences from the Campus Police point of view from the past two communications exercises:
Ø The number of calls to persons designated as a “1” on the notification matrix requires the Dispatcher and both on-duty Watch Captains to assist. This takes the Watch Captains away from their primary duties managing the disaster site and assisting first responders. Even with three people making calls, it took almost an hour to contact all the “1’s” in the last communications exercise.
Ø A solution may be to reduce the number of “1’s” to one or two people. They, in turn would contact the “2’s” and the “2’s” would contact a new group, designated as “3’s”. As much as possible, this would follow normal organization chains of command/supervision. Morgan will make these revisions to the contact matrix and send it out for review.
Ø In order to make the current matrix (or the revision) work more effectively, we will use the dial-in number for responses to the notification and detailed information about the emergency situation. This should minimize the need for callers to repeat long messages. They would simply state that there is an emergency on campus; call 704-687-3838 for further details and instructions. Since this will only work when the land line phone system is functioning, this number may not be operational. In that case, the full message must be delivered with each call made by cell phone.
Ø We should give serious consideration to the purchase (or lease) of a system that would simultaneously broadcast the emergency notification message to all persons on the contact matrix, using land line, cell phone, pager, fax and email. This system will also record successful contacts, and non-contacts. This will greatly reduce the load on the Dispatcher, speed up the notification process, and raise the probability that contact will be made with key people in a minimum amount of time.
E. BCP Workbook and Planner. All departments and administrative units should be working on completion of the Planner, for their Business Continuity Plans. To date we have received several completed planners, but they are the standard by which the auditors will determine the adequacy of our plans. They are a departmental responsibility to complete and maintain. These Planners should be maintained in hard copy and on CD or floppy disk. The storage cabinet in Facilities Management is still available to store these.
F. Practice Disaster Scenario. The committee went through a disaster scenario depicting a regional power blackout that would last for over 72 hours. Available means for sheltering, evacuation, traffic control, internal and external communications, feeding, portable emergency power, and EOC operations were discussed.
(1) Since this scenario took place in January, a critical issue was lack of heat in residence halls. There are many students who will not be able to go home (and many who will come to campus from surrounding apartment complexes seeking shelter, food, etc). Therefore we must be prepared to handle large numbers. A central shelter with some emergency power, restroom facilities, and food service capability is critical. The best location at the present time appears to be the SAC, since it has all of these features and the largest emergency generator (1000KW) on campus. A workgroup is being assembled to study the feasibility of designating the SAC for this purpose.
(2)
After
a call to Duke Power it was confirmed that the University is on a dedicated
priority one 44,000 volt feed from the
G.
The next meeting of the committee will be at
Director, Business Continuity Planning
UNC