In 1988, First Interstate Bank experienced one of the first high rise fires in modern history at it headquarters in Los Angelos. Here is a web link describing the fire. The bank's data center was in...

Drug Testing for Welfare Recipiens
    Disaster Recovery Plan
    Academic Paper
    
Introduction
Banks are one of the earliest adopters of Information Technology in the current world of business. As the nature of bank's business is highly critical, the federal government had mandated that the banks must develop, maintain and carry out disaster recovery plans. This paper explores banking industry's disaster recovery needs and the value of good planning in this nature. The views discussed in this paper are as part of a study of high-rise fire which broke out in a bank in Los Angeles in the year 1988. This paper critically examines the extent of damaged caused, recovery from fire and effective planning behind it.
Extent of damage caused by fire
Fire disaster, when it comes, no matter how small or wide-spread, causes enormous amount of damage. Most of such damage is not recoverable and can include both loss of life and property. The fire which broke out in headquarters of First Interstate Bank led to a very dramatic and tragic situation. The fire had spread floor after the floor destroying computers and trading-room securities. The trading room, where high value transactions (amounting close of billions of dollars) were handled daily, was destroyed beyond any recognizition. The personal computer systems, workstations, mini-computers and microcomputers could not withstand gigantic temperatures of 2,000 Fahrenheit and got burnt to full. The bank's security vault, which was stationed at a height of 11th floor, also got dismantled because of severe water damage. The ground floor of the building was the house of main downtown branch of Los Angeles and the entire floor was devastated due to water damages. Two thousand employees of the bank had to be moved out the building immediately and relocated to another place as soon as possible to start recovery of business. The telephone systems stood non-functional within minutes of breaking of fire. When the communication ceased, it created lot of other issues in the whole recovery process too.
Although, First Interstate bank was saved from the brutality of life loss, yet it had to incur...