Business continuity briefs:
18th July 2008

'Business continuity briefs' provides a summary of new product and services press releases and other useful resources published in the last 24 hours.

Major disaster declared for Vermont
FEMA has announced that federal disaster aid has been made available for Vermont to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the area by severe storms and flooding during the period of June 14-17, 2008. Philip E. Parr was named as the federal coordinating officer for federal recovery operations in the affected area.
http://www.fema.gov/news/event.fema?id=10309

BCI USA Chapter enters partnership with BSI America
The Business Continuity Institute (BCI) USA Chapter and BSI America have joined forces to encourage the adoption of BS 25999 in the country. The partnership will be formally launched in the fall of 2008 in New York City at the first annual BCI USA Chapter workshop, followed by regional events, support for regional continuity and disaster recovery planner events, and other educational forums. In addition to sharing their expertise BCI and BSI will offer cross-partnership discounts on products and training. www.thebci-usa.org www.bsiamerica.com

Organizations are moving e-mail continuity to the cloud says Cemaphore
Cemaphore Systems has announced the availability of the Beta2 release of MailShadow for Google Apps (MailShadowG), allowing organizations to move some or potentially all of their e-mail continuity and disaster recovery into the cloud, with zero infrastructure. Read press release

Audit finds deficiencies in Los Angeles disaster preparedness
City Controller Laura Chick has found that the Los Angeles lacks
key components in its emergency and disaster preparedness. The Chick Disaster Preparedness Report found the following deficiencies in the city:
- Each city department has its own emergency plan and many have not been
up-dated in years, are not of high-quality, and don't meet national
standards.
- Emergency preparedness exercises and training are not well-coordinated
or planned and corrective actions are not tracked or followed for
implementation.
- Administration of about $200 million in Homeland Security and other
public safety grants has been hampered by weak program management,
excessive delays in spending the money, and not having an outcome
assessment of the overall grant program performance.
- The city's collaboration with other government, private and non-profit
entities, including the Red Cross, needs to be strengthened.
Download the report (PDF)

Current environmental stories with business continuity implications:

FEMA daily SITREP

World weather impacts

•Date: 18th July 2008• Region: Various