[LINK] FLoods taking out banking infrastructure

[Richard Chirgwin]

On 13/01/11 6:15 PM, rene wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 14:34:59 +1030, Steven Clark wrote:
>
>> On 13/01/11 12:50, grove at zeta.org.au wrote:
>>> It does beg the question as to why the CUA would not have a
>>> geoclustered datacentre or similar offsite ability to maintain
>>> services......
>> i suspect this kind of flooding never made it into anyone's risk
>> planning scenarios.
> And I suspect that's quite likely partly because after the 1974 Brisbane
> floods, the Wivenhoe Dam was built, in part, for the claimed purpose that
> it would prevent a repeat of the 1974 flood situation. Really, it hasn't,
> and some academic-type expert (can't recall name) on local Brisbane radio
> this morning was remarking that it might have *if* Brisbane was still more
> like a country town. However, there now are a lot more roads,
> bitumen/concrete carparks and other buildings, that prevent water
> absorption into the ground, etc. Local Brisbane ABC radio reports (from
> people calling in to tell them what's happening in their suburbs) that some
> houses/buildings inundated by water are in areas that were not affected in
> 1974, although the flood level peaked at slightly less than the 1974 level.
I also heard John Birmingham remark on ABC radio that some surprise 
floods happened because of backup in stormwater drains which could no 
longer empty into the river (understandably enough).
> Also, unavailability of any type of an online service could be affected by
> the electricity supply (definitely) having been switched off (for safety
> reasons) to premises that are quite some distance from flood waters. That
> has happened because either Energex et al expected the flood waters might
> reach those areas, OR, because the Energex power supply transformers
> installations are in areas that either did or were likely to go under
> water. Hence, power supply was switched off to premises that are kms away
> from flood waters (because they're on the same grid as areas under water,
> or, are serviced by a power transformer installation that's had to be
> switched off because it was likely to be flooded).
>
> I, personally, would be quite cautious about claiming any type of online
> commercial business should have better prepared, because I'm really
> doubtful about the feasibility and cost/benefit practicalities of being
> fully prepared for what is, at this time, a one in some 40 year event.
Let's see.

1. When damn near every service is going to be affected - as Mark Colvin 
Tweeted yesterday, in all but 28 countries in the world this flood was 
so large it would cross borders - it's pettifogging to say "this service 
shouldn't have gone down". It's amazing things survived as well as they did.

However ...

2. Many people talk up the "five nines" or "six nines" services they can 
offer. If the flood is 1:40 then it has a significantly higher 
probability of occurrence than many of the other events the service is 
defended against. If someone spends, oh, ten million defending a data 
centre against a terrorist attack (which has never happened in 
Australia), but buys real estate offering a 2.5% change of the data 
centre being flooded in any given year ... ?

RC
> [From a person in Brisbane, who's kms away from flood waters, but who's
> been without electricity for 36 hours until about 2 hours ago, due to
> flooding a couple of kms away in other parts of the same suburb].
>
> Irene
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
>