The audited systems, referred to as Component A through Component J (the real names have been redacted), pointed to a lack of funds as the main reason the facilities didn’t have disaster recovery sites. In fact, the IG’s first recommendation is that the CIO “allocate funds needed to implement an enterprise-wide disaster recovery program for mission critical systems.�
The irony of the report won’t be lost on anyone. It’s embarrassing to be caught unprepared, especially so for the agency in charge of preparedness. But often the cost of that preparation seems unreasonably high – until you consider the cost of not being prepared for a real disaster.
Former Secret Service agent Joseph Petro writes in his book, Standing Next to History, of the elaborate preparation and backup plans required to protect the President. There are agents with the President, ahead at his next stop, at the nearest trauma hospital. There are backup cars, planes, communications systems and contingency plans for every imaginable emergency. Petro writes that when President Reagan traveled to China, he landed with 19 planes and 900 people.
That's a lot of money to protect one person, but if anything were to happen to the President, it wouldn't have been enough. Homeland security is a HUGE job that's always under scrutiny. Backups and redundancy aren't as sexy as x-ray scanners, but they are undeniably more important.
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