Emergency Plan Speeds University’s Recovery from Devastating Fire

A fire at James Madison University’s (JMU) administrative offices could have crippled the entire school for an extended period of time. But three days after the fire, the payroll department issued paychecks as usual. Did a good emergency plan make the difference?

In an article on the Government Technology website, Chandler Harris says the fire destroyed payroll materials, accounts payable and receivable records, cash, IT equipment, grants and contracts. “JMU also lost paper files stored in the building, including all its employees’ W-4 forms,” Harris says. “More than 50 JMU employees were forced to move into temporary offices on campus.”

So how did the university still issue paychecks three days later? According to Harris, it was the school’s resilient emergency plan and prepared staff.

“The payroll running the following Wednesday revealed a lot of effort went into quickly trying to find locations for staff and get the system back up from the university department perspective,” Dale Hulvey, assistant vice president for information technology at JMU, told Harris.

Hulvey credits part of the successful rebound to an efficient transition, since every JMU employee affected by the disaster was notified the night of the fire and given instructions for the temporary workstation location.

“A lot of effort went into quickly trying to find locations for staff, and get them functioning,” Hulvey told Harris. “These folks all relied on computers, and trying to get computers, phones and other equipment functioning was where the challenge was.”

To read the full article, click here:  http://www.govtech.com/pcio/articles/279724