Blog

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), the California-based utility that provides service to almost two-thirds of the state, initiated a public safety power shutoff (PSPS) on October 9th to around 500,000-800,000 of its customers. Most of those customers reside in the northern part of the state in counties surrounding San Francisco and Sacramento. A lesser portion also resides around Los Angeles.

Anyone with the will and skill could crack the bug, which spelled serious danger for MuleSoft’s users and those users’ customers. MuleSoft needed to patch the bug immediately. And they did, all while making their customers aware of an issue that could’ve flown under the radar.

Here's an account of Mark’s career, the lessons he’s learned, and how he envisions the future of emergency management and response.

Here are some tips for keeping you and others safe when a disaster or emergency forces you to power up your generator.

In the September 2019 issue of Airport Improvement Magazine, an article details how 29 Northern Ontario airports digitized SMS (safety management system) with Veoci.

Any possible outage instigators are always on the minds of utilities, too, and the reason for a handful of proactive programs, including vegetation management.

Preventive maintenance can offer many long-term benefits to its practitioners. This methodology has a lot of application, with use cases in almost every industry. Anywhere where machines, equipment, tools, or assets need to be in good condition to get the job done, preventive maintenance should be the engine behind it all.

Since being introduced to the market, drones have been used by enthusiasts around the world to gain all-new perspectives, including shots of wildfires, even at a risk to others.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be front and center in an Emergency Operations Center (EOC). So when the opportunity presented itself, I accepted without hesitation. I’ve always found that experience is the best teacher.

Five days before hitting the Florida panhandle, Hurricane Michael was nothing more than a slight disturbance making its way towards the Gulf of Mexico.Over the next five days, a historic hurricane developed in the gulf. Hurricane Michael soon swelled to become the fourth category 5 hurricane to make landfall in US history.

We see that towns across the country demonstrate a clear need for evacuation plans from officials. What do these plans need to contain, and how can a town make sure the official plan is accessible?

Exercising a BCP is rarely as simple as the online guides suggest. A business continuity manager has to jump through a lot of hoops to get that final, show-ready polish on a BCP. They’re often chasing buy-in from each corner of the organization and bugging business unit leads and department managers to test BCPs and record the outcomes. What can a business continuity manager do to encourage the heads in their organizations to actively participate and do their part in preparing for disruptions?

How much damage can a business system outage cause? As is pretty clear these days, they happen often, and can have serious impact. Take, for example, Visa’s payment network outage. On June 1st, 2018, Visa’s payment system in Europe went down for nearly ten hours, halting many personal and bank transactions. The massive, complex nature of the system made it difficult to pinpoint the root cause of the outage, adding hours of downtime and many degrees of frustration for the company’s customers. After performing their root cause analysis, the company identified a “very rare partial failure” of a switch in one of their data centers as the cause of the outage.

Hurricanes, wildfires, and tornadoes each leave distinct impacts on the regions they affect. This leaves one question: What are the most destructive natural disasters (of these types) in history? How much damage does each type of disaster cause, and what contributes to their destructive potential?

If there was one very clear theme to this year’s DRI conference in Las Vegas, it was the importance of having a diverse community in the world of business continuity management (BCM). From the sessions to the talking points in the exhibit hall, it’s clear that the future of BCM depends on having a strong and diverse community of practitioners and leaders. Here’s our top 5 takeaways from DRI 2019.

Responding to major business disruptions are a company-wide effort. Every team gets involved during the response and recovery. But despite how great having help from every angle is, it can be disruptive and throw the cart of the rails quickly. How do you keep a steady course through these difficult crisis management challenges?

Just after lunch one day, you receive this email: “Can you send me the password for our network? I just can’t seem to remember it right now. Thanks.” At first, this seems a bit weird to you. No one in your office asks for passwords over email. But you also remember that some of your colleagues from another office are visiting for the next couple of days, so now this seems somewhat plausible.

In early October 2018, the president signed the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018 (DRRA) in tandem with the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2018. After extreme wildfire and hurricane seasons in 2017, FEMA and Congress worked hard to reform how US communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. The result of that is this bill.

On December 12th, 2017, user Primpwatcher at phantompilots.com posted a video of their latest drone outing on a message board. When you watch the video, see if you notice what they saw when they watched the flight footage back.

A strong social services program can make a big difference in a community. It’s why some of New Haven’s own residents run the city’s Youth Stat program, a school-based intervention program seeking to reduce justice involvement and improve health and wellness outcomes in students from elementary and postsecondary education.

There’s a lot of paper, email chains, work, and time involved for every facility running EOC Rounds. But it doesn’t need to this strenuous.

In April 2018, Hodges and Friel organized a reunification drill on campus. The drill mimicked what would happen during a real evacuation.

Those who did receive notifications via text weren’t given the total picture, however. The text notification was incomplete.

The safety management system is built on hazard reporting and risk assessment. But what will tomorrow's safety management sytem look like?

Veoci’s Geoff Baum recently penned an article about Veoci’s move to Vue and Vuetify on Medium. Learn more about this innovation and Veoci’s future.

Responding to a data breach is a high-pressure situation, especially when you consider the EU's newest privacy regulation, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and its requirements.

June 1st marks the official start of hurricane season. Every year, businesses, governments, colleges and universities, hospitals, and other organizations along the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast prepare for the inevitable arrival of storms and hurricanes, doing everything possible to minimize their impact. Veoci's first trial was by hurricane.

Previously, we talked with Maria about how she prepared for commencement every year. Now we’re going to jump into her career and how she dedicated it to emergency management.

With over 30 member center locations and billions in assets, Wright-Patt Credit Union (WPCU) has many complex daily operations to oversee. But daily operations don't draw WPCU's total focus. Emergency incidents are rare, but they do happen.

Connecticut’s second largest city, New Haven, is home to one of the oldest universities in the country: Yale University. Yale is an important piece of the city of New Haven, and both the school and the city often work hand-in-hand.

National Wildfire Awareness Month kicks of this week, with May 5th being national Wildfire Community Preparedness Day. It's a great reminder of how important it is to be ready for these incidents, especially with the hot and dry summer weather around the corner.

National Reentry Week, from April 23rd-28th 2018, ended on a strong and hopeful note. During National Reentry Week and National Second Chance Month, we reflect on the people who dedicate their work to ensuring there’s a life after prison.

On April 17th 2017, The City of New Haven Youth Services Department presented Veoci with the 2018 YSB (Youth Services Bureau) Community Partner of the Year at The Great Escape Charity Breakfast.

Among the many solutions that Veoci provides to the General Aviation industry, one of the less heralded but highly important (and interesting!) ones is Lease Management, especially for smaller Part 139 certified airports. And while it may seem like a simple application, Veoci’s usage as a lease management tool is an excellent demonstration of how Veoci can be configured for very specific aviation needs.

DRI 2018 - The Professional’s Conference (hosted by Disaster Recovery Institute International) was a fantastic opportunity for everyone to learn about the transforming landscape of resilience and business continuity.

Six years ago, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was first proposed to the EU. Two years ago, the EU passed the new regulation. And in 3 months, GDPR will take effect. GDPR has a broad scope.

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) selected Veoci Software as the Safety Management System (SMS) to the Province's northern remote airports. The MTO has the largest airport network in Canada, owning and operating 29 airports across northern Ontario.

Anyone who travels knows how enriching the experience is. Ibn Battuta, a 14th century Moroccan scholar, learned this quickly. When he set out on hajj in 1325, he probably didn’t plan on staying out for 24 straight years.

Upwards of 105 million people are expected to travel over the end of year holidays this year. Among them will be a majority of the 12,000 students and 4,500 faculty and staff of Yale University.

The National Healthcare Coalition Preparedness Conference of 2017 (NHCPC) finished up just over a week ago. We followed up with Rich Smith, a Senior Solutions Associate at Veoci, who attended the conference for the first time this year.

On November 15th and 16th, GridEx, a biennial event, will be taking place. Representatives from the North American utility industry, as well as various regional and federal agencies, will take part in simulated emergencies to test their response plans.

Warmer days are finally here as we head towards summer and away from the record-breaking winter of 2015 with its blizzards, storms, massive snow accumulations, and various lingering effects (have you counted the number of new potholes in your neighborhood?).

The University of North Dakota (UND), in Grand Forks, ND, and founded in 1883, is the state's oldest and largest university, with more than 15,000 students.

I've worked with many airports on various projects, and whenever the topic of the Federal Aviation Administration's Safety Management System (SMS) directive comes up, there is apprehension.

In order to test emergency response plans and the coordination of airport staff with local first responders, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires all Part 139 certified airports to conduct, every 3 years, emergency exercises that simulate potential real-life incidents.

In an earlier blog post we examined how weather and other disasters have a severe impact on small & medium-sized businesses, who often do not have the resources to dedicate to Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Disaster Recovery (DR) as many large corporations do.

We worked with the City of New Haven, Connecticut, to prepare for and respond to Superstorm Sandy a few weeks ago. This post is Part 3 in a series in which we discuss our experiences and what we learned as we helped New Haven through this crisis.

As Hurricane Sandy is making its landfall on the east coast, utility companies must be gearing up to handle fallen trees, damaged electric lines, flooding, and reports of other outages. Here’s a scenario of how Veoci can help a utility company better manage the situation.