Before the Panic

Statistically, those are the most common disasters and are usually easily dealt with. Recently, however, rare events have been popping up over and over again—multiple Category 5 hurricanes and the impending avian flu pandemic, for example—and these catastrophes beg the very important question: How are financial services firms preparing to combat these challenges?

In an interagency white paper written a couple years back, the authors suggested that firms should base their backup sites about 300