While records managers hope they will never be faced with a catastrophe, by nature they are unpredictable events. Tornados, fires, earthquakes and hurricanes are just some of the events that can torment an unprepared records manager.

Use these examples to get support for your own disaster management plan - lest you join those unfortunate enough to be represented here.

Alteration of Records

Breaches of Privacy

Breakdowns in Accountability

Catastrophes

Deliberate or Illegal Destruction of Records

Inadequate Corporate Recordkeeping Systems

Inappropriate Disposal of Records

Non-compliance

Operational and Organisational Failures

Catastrophes

Thousands of records facilities worldwide have suffered damage directly from disasters. Organisations in Australia have been relatively lucky in comparison, although many disasters have not been reported. Some of the disasters which have affected records include:

Paper warehouse destroyed in fire

In a remarkable coincidence two records storage facilities were destroyed by fire in the same week. A huge fire ripped through a six-storey paper storage warehouse in east London...Iron Mountain, the firm that owns the data storage unit, said it held "archived, inactive business records".

In the same week a second Iron Mountain warehouse in Ottawa, Canada, was also hit by fire. The fire at a warehouse in the Cyrville industrial area, believed to contain thousands of boxes of inactive records, was designated as accidental, the Ottawa Sun newspaper reported.

Source BBC Web site July 2006

Hurricane Katrina

There is a wealth of information on the web about the devastating loss of records resulting from Hurricane Katrina.

A vault filled with precious pre-civil war pictures, maps and documents cataloguing the history of the Gulf Coast community has been destroyed. The vault had been believed to have been waterproof but was not, thus most of the collection including town ledgers and old newspapers were lost.

Source CNN.com

Numerous paper records have been lost. Medical records detailing medications have been destroyed, as have records such as drivers licences, birth certificates, wills and insurance policies. Total destruction of this kind had not been planned for and the effects will be far reaching.

Source MSNBC.com

The hurricane leaves a legacy that will have major legal effects. Federal and state courts report a massive loss of legal records. The records from thousands of cases have been destroyed. Law firms in the affected area report the same major losses. Many legal records and items of evidence are not electronic and cannot be recreated. The ability to either prove, defend or appeal numerous pending civil and criminal cases may have vanished. This creates a massive legal limbo. The post hurricane litigation, which is likely to be astronomical, will be further complicated by this destruction of court records.

Source Boardman Law Firm September 2005

Fire Destroys Bronze Age Records

Research documents which chronicle one of Europe's most important Bronze Age excavations have been destroyed by a fire - in a mouse nest.

Source BBC News Jan 14, 2000

Mt Stromlo Observatory, Canberra 2003

In January 2003, a firestorm destroyed much of the observatory facilities at the Australia National University Mt Stromlo Observatory in Canberra, Australia. Approximately 60 staff members and 20 graduate students lost their equipment and their records. The Observatory's library was destroyed, along with many archives.

World Trade Centre, September 11 2001

The World Trade Centre was the repository of reams of financial information on companies and individuals, much of it existing only in the form of paper. After the terrorist attack little paper remained in the rubble of the Twin Towers, and there was also considerable damage and contamination to paperwork belonging to companies nearby. One major bank located nearby managed to retrieve critical documents (worth £2bn) only to find that they were saturated with water and contaminated with aircraft fuel, oil and rat poison. The businesses that recovered most quickly from this disaster were those who were able to activate computerbackups of their vital records.

Melbourne City Archives 1994

In 1994 there was an explosion at a substation owned by the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, which caused a major fire. Unfortunately, the Melbourne City Archives were stored in the same building. While the fire did not spread to the 25000 paper-based city planning documents, they were damaged by soot and smoke and had to be cleaned afterwards by an external company at significant cost.

Source Image & Data Manager

Bankstown City Council Civic Centre 1997

Another more recent disaster was the fire at Bankstown City Council Civic Centre on 1 July 1997. The fire destroyed much of the building and damages exceeded $30 million. While many of the paper-based records were not destroyed in the fire, water damage to them was extensive. The mainframe system on-site storage tape was not destroyed in the fire allowing access to the data (even though it had to be sent to France to read). The Bankstown Council fire was not as disastrous as it could have been and business continuity was soon restored on a limited capacity at another site.

Source NSW State Records

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