Back in Manhattan, the trenches of Wall Street had been in a state of near-pandemonium for five days. After September 11, many corporations — the headquarters of multinationals, general commerce, manufacturing, service industries, and financial institutions — had been jolted into reviewing and updating their crisis-management procedures. They had already put disaster recovery strategies into operation to get the businesses back up and running in the event of a catastrophe, and thought of backup facilities and systems that could be activated fast if the head office were struck or disabled.
But not many of them had thought it through quite well enough, and many of the same old problems that had haunted so many U.S. corporations in the aftermath of 9/11 were still present.
Several corporations, devastated by the fall of the twin towers, did have backup systems, but in neighboring streets of Manhattan, which obviously rendered them utterly useless in this case.
There were other corporations that had tried to save money by sharing facilities through third-party providers, outfits that had reasonable storage for information technology facilities, but almost no desk space for employees, and were trying to salvage the business from calamity.
The tsunami suddenly brought into prominence the looming potential for a systematic failure that might put several of the world’s largest financial institutions out of operation for a significant time. On this early October Monday, the financial capital of New York City was staring down the gun barrel of the most terrible domino effect that could very easily lead to the total collapse of the world’s financial system.
A stern warning, in the aftermath of 9/11, had been issued by the regulatory body, the Security and Exchange Commission. In one section of the consultative document, the SEC had imposed specific requirements on major financial institutions, stipulating precisely the acceptable recovery periods and minimum distances between backup facilities.
Some corporations, like International Business Machines, had put these hugely expensive plans onto a fast track, probably fast enough to stay ahead of the tsunami. IBM had scoured the Kittatinny Mountains area out in western New Jersey, looking for a site to install a complete new complex that would enable them to provide, in corporate parlance, “full IT resilience” plus duplicate live data centers.
Finally, they had settled on Sterling Hill and invested heavily in setting up their Business and Continuity Recovery Center in a maze of great office complexes 35 miles northwest of Wall Street — some of them underground, in old disused mines, others in the hills and forests. And there, many of their clients had paid a monthly rental for several years, in return for secure office space with computers and desks, plus entire computer backup if ever required.
IBM’s foresight caused several other Manhattan corporations to head for the New Jersey hills as well. For five days now, there had been a steady stream of executives — bankers, financial officers, and an army of backup operators — moving out to New Jersey. A gigantic electronic surge in the local power stations signaled their arrival, as the alternative offices came on stream, operating parallel to their headquarters in nerve-racked Manhattan.
Still battling away, in the almost-deserted ops rooms of Wall Street, was a battalion of computer technicians retrieving hardcopy material, main servers, and ancillary equipment, sending truckload after truckload of high-tech data out to the crowded highways towards to the mountain ranges east of the Poconos.
Morgan Stanley, the securities giant, had been forced to relocate 3,700 employees when the World Trade Center was destroyed. In the ensuing years, that corporation had been committed, more than most, to building a state-of-the-art backup trading facility. They selected their site and were up and running, 18 miles outside of Manhattan, by 2007. The only problem: the complex was located in Harrison, less than two miles from Mamaroneck Harbor, along the flat northern shore of Long Island Sound, where the tidal surge was estimated at about 80 feet. Not ideal for Morgan Stanley.
Alas, very few stockbrokers were among the exodus. The New York Stock Exchange had made a strategic misjudgment. In response to the edict laid down by the SEC, they had built an alternative trading facility to serve as backup in the event of a disaster in lower Manhattan. It could be put into full operation within twenty-four hours, a turnaround time superior to even the one laid down by the SEC. Problem here: the NYSE’s backup facility was in New York City.
Its unfortunate location was causing anxieties, from Wall Street to the White House. The sudden closure of the main world market, possibly for several weeks, would likely have catastrophic effects.
The NYSE listed more than 2,800 companies (both foreign and multinationals) that had a global market capitalization of around $15 trillion between them. Its daily functioning was absolutely fundamental to the continued stability of the world markets. Almost all stock exchanges, major and regional, had been agonizing in recent years over disaster recovery facilities. Three thousand business personnel supported trading on the NYSE floor every day, using 8,000 telephone lines and 5,500 handheld electronic devices. A backup trading floor, with full equipment, cost $50 million.
And it’s not as if everything neatly kept together. The NYSE has historically spread itself all over the place. They had started enlarging and remodeling as long ago as 1870, beginning with their original five-story building at 10 Broad Street. Over the years, more buildings opened, finishing with a fifth trading room located at 30 Broad Street in 2000, which featured the most up-to-date display technology on earth.
All of this was no easy operation to pack up, and it was almost impossible to imagine duplicating everything somewhere else, under one roof. The exodus of the Stock Exchange was a permanent preoccupation for many high-ranking government officials, the irony being that the tsunami would most likely rub out the backup before it even hit the main Exchange. It looked like they would have to head for Chicago. Philadelphia was out of the question, since the City of Brotherly Love was sited on a peninsula, where the broad Schuylkill River ran into the even broader Delaware. The Philadelphia Navy Base had already evacuated both ships and personnel, since scientists from the University of Pennsylvania thought the rivers might rise up to 25 feet.
The third and biggest issue, after the evacuation of the big businesses, was the removal of the city’s art treasures. As one of the world centers of art and culture, New York City contained seventy-five notable museums, plus scores and scores of art galleries. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, and the Museum of Natural History, known locally as “the Big Five,” were world-class institutions. The dozens of others, if they were located in a smaller city, would be star attractions in their own right.
The Metropolitan, for example — or the “Met,” as they say in the Big Apple — is tantamount to a universal culture zone, all on its own, with wing after wing, labyrinths of corridors and galleries, containing three million objects in all…paintings and sculpture, ceramics, glass, furniture, the armor of medieval knights, bronzes, and the rarest of musical instruments. Each item, historic, genuine, and coveted by curators the world over.
For days now, a great convoy of military trucks had been evacuating the building designated by the U.S. a National Historical Landmark. Already, they had removed 36,000 treasures of Ancient Egypt, from dynastic and pre-dynastic times. Everything was on its way to a U.S. Air Force Base in Upstate New York, where it would be guarded, 24/7, by upwards of 300 military personnel.