Sandy forces activation of contingency plans: our evaluation

Hurricane Sandy provided an unwanted, real time test of our contingency plans. Here is the good and bad of our status. Overall we were pleasantly surprised.  

• significant damage in the local region severely impairing transportation, particularly in wooded areas and completely shutting down all public transportation
• loss of electricity, heat, hot water, wireline based telephone & primary internet access by cable. Some 80%+ of Connecticut lost power
• no harm to WWB staff or physical plant 
• while our primary internet service provider went down, we maintained continuous & adaquate, albeit constrained, access to email & internet thoughout via smart phone 
• our recent shift of certain applications to the leading internet business platform performed flawlessly thoughout

In face of one of the larger disruptions of the last decade or two, we retained adaquate operational capacity, though limited in some respects. The acid test: we never lost the ability to communicate with our clients, our primary independent custodian, or capacity to execute when the markets were open. 

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Those who followed the news know the magnitude of disruption. Our primary internet provider, a major provider in the region, went down. We heard it was due to a broken internet backbone, not a small issue. We know we had better 'survivability' than some unhappy billion dollar denizens of mid-town who were reliant upon T-1 lines. 

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I can tell you the region is fortunate for the warm weather, and we hope it holds. Things would have been much worse on the population had the temperature been in the 30's.  We watched the opening of the NYSE and see normalcy returning. One suspects the magnitude of damage to the infrastructure below ground in New York City is substantial and for that reason undiscussed in public fora.

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Don't hesitate to call, text or email us if you need assistance. We will respond.  If we can't take your call immediately, we will get back to you asap. 

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Thanks for your support and patience.