NOYC’s Communications Systems Survive Two Natural Disasters
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 12/29/2006 10:00 AM
NEW ORLEANS, LA – The New Orleans Yacht Club (NOYC) hosts a web site with an audience of sailors across the Gulf Coast to disiminate information about the sport of sailing, club activities and to provide a means to colloborate ideas. The club’s communications plan includes two web sites, in case one failed.
Last year, NOYC.org was taken out by Hurricane Katrina as the server was located in a downtown building with a collapsed roof. Backup site NOYC.info worked just fine during the disaster.
A few days after the storm, NOYC received a call stating that they had exceeded the monthly quota for network usage. It was only the second day of the month. US Sailing, Sailing Anarchy, Yahoo!, CNN, WWL and others had linked the secondary web site because of the outstanding Katrina photos.
After a few minutes, the Internet service provider called NOYC back to say that we are waiving the costs associated with upgrades and extremely apologized for the suffering that everyone experienced in New Orleans.
This week, NOYC.info, the club’s secondary web site which was hosted in Hong Kong, was effectively taken offline when the earthquakes in Asia damaged fiber optic networks, ironically at the bottom of the sea.
“Most of the inquiries about when the service was to be restored were from people who were not members of New Orleans Yacht Club”, said David Erwin the club’s webmaster. “This is a tribute to our success as we have extended our reach nationally.” Erwin said.
The secondary web site, which hosts the club’s message board was redirected to another network located in Boston to restore service.
The website’s editor, Troy Gilbert says, that is “ironic that both the club’s primary and secondary communications services were taken offline by a natural disaster. The club’s public relations team is proud to say that even though we took some hits, at least one of the two web sites remained fully operational at all times.” Gilbert explained.
