Computer systems blamed for feeble hurricane response?

Tue Sep 13 18:51:27 UTC 2005

On Sep 13, 2005, at 11:13 AM, Hannigan, Martin wrote:

> ObOp: Email is NOT a reliable form of communication.

         ^^^ unrelated and I disagree...

>       DHS shouldn't start to think so either. NANOG
>       shouldn't worry about if someones email is working
>       as a byproduct, but sure worry if the store and forward
>       function of an ISP is. '

        ^^^ There exist networks and operators who do not run ISPs.   
People often forget.

>       Perhaps there are reasons some corporate or volunteer
>       mail service is not working i.e. blocked, disallowed on port,
>       etc.

        ^^^ I'm sure there is a reason.  My first guess is that it's  
broken.  My second is that it was never intended to be a domain used  
for email and the website techs never got the memo.

> ObNotOp:
>
> Anyone who needs to contact FEMA, already knows how. If they
> are using a web page address, they probably shouldn't be contacting
> FEMA directly, but working through their own government hierarchy.

In dealing with incidents it is possible to cover many areas of  
failure.  There are many cases where the chain of command, the  
hierarchy process and many other elements fail.  In those times,  
sometimes getting to a website and finding a contact address serve as  
a real means of communication and should be regarded as such.   
History proves the point that out of band comms and other forms of  
handling are often used during an emergency that were not expected.

Right now if I go to http://www.fema.gov and click on "How to get  
help" and then "Contact us" I get a 404 forbidden.  That's a  
failure.  It's narrow-sighted to underestimate the importance of  
things like FEMAs website in dealing with national disaster and  
incident response.

-david