Impact of Hurricane Harvey on Gaille Media's Business Continuity Plan

This report analyzes Gaille Media's Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) plan in response to Hurricane Harvey, a devastating event that struck Southeast Texas in 2017. The paper begins by defining BC/DR plans and their importance in preparing organizations for disruptive events, such as natural disasters. It then provides background on Hurricane Harvey, detailing its catastrophic impact on the region and the destruction it caused to numerous businesses. The report examines the specific impact on Gaille Media, a small marketing agency, whose office was flooded. Despite the damage, the company was able to maintain operations due to its cloud-based data storage and decentralized work model, highlighting the effectiveness of its BC/DR plan. The analysis concludes by emphasizing the critical role of BC/DR plans in ensuring business resilience and minimizing the negative consequences of unforeseen events.

Running head: BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
Name of the Student:
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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
BC/DR Plan:....................................................................................................................................2
Analysis of the Historical Event:.....................................................................................................3
Impact on Organization:..................................................................................................................4
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................5
References:......................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction:
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans are a type of a method that helps every
organization to prepare themselves for any kind of unfortunate and disruptive events. Those
events may include anything ranging from a simple power outage to hurricane or any other kind
of natural disaster. It is the responsibility of the CSO to oversee the plan and help with the
provision of proper support so that the plan can be implemented. Gaille Media, a small
marketing agency situated in the US was hit by Hurricane Harvey and this paper analyzes its
BC/DR plan to overcome the disaster.
Gaille media is located in southeast Texas and is a small business which operates on the
grounds of a small internet marketing agency. In the year 2017, the Hurricane Harvey slammed
into the area of South east Texas and ravaged lots of homes and businesses. Gaille media was
one of such firm that was affected by this disaster and had to utilize the BC/DR plan to get back
into its track. Research showed that the disaster destroyed 40 percent to 60 percent of the small
business in the area but Gaille media was one of those few firms that did not contribute to the
statistics of the companies that were unable to restart their business.
BC/DR Plan:
There is a difference between Disaster Recovery plan and Business continuity plan;
disaster recovery is the plan that an organization implements when it is disrupted by any
disastrous event. The events might include something as earthquake or any kind of attack; the
event can also range from smaller in gravity like malfunctioning software to the attack of a
computer virus (McNeill & Topping, 2018). However, it is the tendency of human beings to have

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a brighter outlook on every aspect of life which is why a lot of the business executives are prone
to ignore the possibility of happening of such an event that is unlikely. Hence, Business
continuity planning comes into view that suggests an approach which is more comprehensible in
nature, in order to ensure that the business continues to earn revenues regardless of the occurring
of either a natural disaster or of the occurrence of smaller events like illness outbreak, or trouble
with supply chain partners and more.
However, both BC plan and DR plan needs to include steps that will guide the employees
to keep doing their jobs whilst the disruption. The details of the communication vary from
organization to organization and are dependent on factors like the scope and size of the
organization or the way it does its business. These factors are important since some companies
have the supply chain logistics as the most important issues to solve, and on the other hand, for
some other companies, the information technology plays more vital role (Kadam & Manjusha,
2017). Despite of the visible distinctions in between the terms, Business Continuity Plan and
Disaster Recovery Plan is often used under the same acronym BC/DR due to the existence of
several common considerations.
Analysis of the Historical Event:
In the year 2017 in the month of August, a category 4 hurricane hit Texas and Louisiana
that led to some catastrophic flooding and ended up taking lives of many people. Similar
hurricane occurred in the year 2005 by the name of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Harvey tied
up with Hurricane Katrina in terms of being the costliest tropical cyclone. Both the hurricanes
inflicted a total of $125 billion of damage that was mainly caused from a catastrophic rainfall
which was triggered by the cyclone in the Southeast Texas’ metropolitan area of Houston (Sobel,

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Kiaghadi & Rifai, 2017). This Hurricane was recorded to be the wettest tropical cyclone that
year as per the records of the United States. The floods that resulted from the hurricane caused
displacement of more than 30,000 people and compelled to conduct more than 17,000 rescues.
As mentioned above, the catastrophe resulted in the destruction of 40-60 percent of the
small organizations in the area of South east Texas; these companies were never able to get back
on their business after the destruction it caused. Over the span of 4 days, the hurricane inflicted
40 inches of rain that led to the devastation of numerous small organizations. The wind blew at
200kn per hour which whipped down everything around the Gulf of Mexico (McDonald &
Naughton, 2019). The businesses that were disrupted by the calamity, lost a lot of revenues and
in order to build everything back up, they would require extra expenses; in turn it reduced the
profits of the small firms. Moreover, not every firm has insurance that would cover the damages;
thus these firms lost their customers as well as their position in the market.
Impact on Organization:
Gaille media was also amongst all the small businesses that were destroyed by the
Hurricane. Their office was flooded by the overflow of water from Lake Houston despite the fact
that it was on the second floor. All the staff members were unable to re-enter their office for the
period of three months. After they were able to re-enter, it was found that everything was
destroyed and there were mould present in dangerous level. In spite of this fact, the impact that
the hurricane inflicted on this organization was minimal since they had already stored their data
in the Cloud as per their BC/DR Plan. Due to a proper Business Continuity plan, the Gaille
Media was able to keep its staff in working mode even after the destruction of its office. Since
the data was stored in the cloud, there was no loss of access to all the critical data. The owner

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decided to keep the company decentralized and allow his workers to work remotely, once it was
time to decide where to relocate.
Conclusion:
Disaster is in an unlikely event but when it occurs, it can cause huge destruction. Hence,
it is unwise to ignore the importance of the BC/DR plan of an organization. Without a proper
plan of recovery, it would take more time and expense for the companies to rebuild itself and
risks the existence of the organization. Gaille media utilized the plan and was able to work
through the disruption unlike the other organizations which had to close due to huge expense and
loss.

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References:
Kadam, D., & Manjusha, S. (2017). Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) and Business Continuity Plan
(BCP) for Financial Cooperatives in New Market Economy. Disaster Recovery Plan
(DRP) and Business Continuity Plan (BCP) for Financial Cooperatives in New Market
Economy (February 20, 2017).
McDonald, W. M., & Naughton, J. B. (2019). Impact of hurricane Harvey on the results of
regional flood frequency analysis. Journal of Flood Risk Management, 12, e12500.
McNeill, R., & Topping, J. (2018). Emergency Planning: Federal, provincial and territorial
public health response plan for biological events. Canada Communicable Disease Report,
44(1), 1.
Sobel, R. S., Kiaghadi, A., & Rifai, H. S. (2017, December). Using satellite imagery to quantify
water quality impacts and recovery from Hurricane Harvey. In AGU Fall Meeting
Abstracts.