Hurricane Gustav September 6, 2008 8:00PM Central

Power returns! The generators are off. Battery Backups are in place to deal with the likely unevenness of the power. About 50% of the greater Baton Rouge area has power at this point. Our immediate neighbor still has a big oak across their power feed. They have been given a date of September 24th for the restoration of service. 

Hurricane Gustav September 5, 2008 10:00PM Central

We continue to run on diesel generator. Our telecommunications are steady.  The updates were ready at the regular time. We answered calls all day. Evening updates were on time. Click for system status.

Areas all around us have lights tonight, but we are still in the dark. Thus weekend we will be configuring the office with cubicles for all in our largest room cooled by a window A/C unit.

Hurricane Gustav September 4, 2008 10:00PM Central

We continue to run on diesel generator. Our telecommunications are steady.  The updates were ready at the regular time. We returned messages left on our business lines in a morning batch, afternoon batch, and evening batch. Evening updates were on time. Click for system status.

We are issuing a call to return to work, Monday, to all our employees who are scattered from Portland Oregon to Gatlinburg Tennessee. Local authorities have predicted that power in our area  will return tomorrow, Friday.

We will post photos over this weekend on this page.

Hurricane Gustav September 3, 2008 8:00PM Central

We continue to run on diesel generator. Our telecommunications are steady. The updates were ready at the regular time. We are returning messages left on our business lines.

The sunset this evening was beautiful.

Hurricane Gustav September 2, 2008 8:00PM Central

We continue to run on diesel generator. Our telecommunications are intermittent. While we have an employee out of town ready to help, communications between us is difficult. Cell phone text messages seemed most reliable, but take 30 minutes or more to get through. It rained all day.

Tomorrow will be better.

Hurricane Gustav September 2, 2008 4:00AM Central

Yesterday was a time of survival and gratitude for being spared. Today is back to reality. Disasters are something you are supposed to see on television, not in your own backyard. The big things I was prepared for, but the little things are keeping me awake. 

The big things: My family is uninjured. We have food, water, and shelter. Our business disaster preparation is a success. There will be no interruption of evening data updates although delays are likely. We hope to be up with data no later than 8:00PM Eastern time tonight.

National TV is rejoicing in the survival of New Orleans, but there has been huge damage from Terrebonne Parish on the Gulf north to Baton Rouge. There is unknown loss of life . . . much less than Katrina because of widespread evacuation.  Roads into coastal areas were impassable as the storm eased and night fell. Lives were spared, property was not.

The little things: I do not expect any employees to show up for work today . . . perhaps for the rest of the week. A few evacuated. All of us will be dealing with the little problems suffered by ourselves,  family, friends, and neighbors like:

• No phones, no power, no refrigerator, no air conditioning, no gasoline
• No school, no TV,
• Water leaks. soaked carpets . . . . Hurricane winds force the water through the door seals (even keyholes) and window frames.
• Driveways blocked by down trees, subdivisions with no exit due to piles of rubble mixed with power lines. 
• Stores closed or emptied.
• Trying to get through to insurance companies, and ultimately attorneys to resolve claims
• Contractors, roofers, tree guys
• Government paper work to register for "relief"
• Mildew.
• House washing. A 100mph wind (which we sustained) plasters buildings in shredded vegetation. Imagine grinding a large oak in a blender and then painting the mixture all over your house and roof . . . better yet . . . wait a week in the summer sun before trying to wash it off.

Hurricane Gustav September 1, 2008 4:00PM Central

The northeast corner of the eye wall clipped our community. The 6-acre FastTrack campus lost about half of it trees. Power is out. Telecommunications are normal. The Office is undamaged. Rising water and rain should not be a problem. Systems are running on battery (big marine batteries which should last at least another 18 hours). Tomorrow morning we will fire up the diesel generators. We will post status about noon regarding the office opening. The Tuesday data update should not be affected. 

Our home was undamaged. However we have no word on employees. Several evacuated. At this moment winds are still gusting with tropical storm force. Thank you for your prayers and good wishes,

Paul and Shirley Charbonnet.

Hurricane Gustav August 31, 2008 8:00PM Central

Gustav's eye is predicted to pass over our office Monday afternoon. This is not good news. However, we are well inland. If you are reading this page, then we are still operating normally. Data updates will take place Tuesday about an hour later than usual from our server in Arizona. Our 800 number will have a status message on it once the storm has passed.

Likely we will not take or return calls Tuesday, however, please leave a message if your are experiencing problems. We appreciate your patience.

Paul Charbonnet, Founding Partner

Hurricane Gustav August 29, 2008 8:00PM Central

Gustav remains on course for a Louisiana landfall on Tuesday. However, the track is by no means certain. This afternoon from about 2PM to 5PM we switched our update server to our Arizona-based server. About 40 FastTrackers connected during this period getting updates, upgrade, and OLIC service. We called seven of these subscribers. They were unaware of any difference in the service, We picked this period for a test as there is relatively little traffic this time of day. 

We will be putting up the Arizona server Saturday afternoon for the duration of the hurricane event through the Tuesday evening update. It is unlikely that we will be open for support during the day Tuesday September 2nd. We are flying  an employee to the San Antonio area (staying with family) mid-day Sunday. FastTrack data service can be run indefinitely off site.

Hurricane Gustav August 28, 2008 4:00PM Central

This is what is taking up a lot of time and energy here in at FastTrack HQ today. The red X is our office location.

If the storm is of average size we may have 75-100 MPH winds. Katrina  in 2005 was about 60 miles east of us. See photos pictures below of what Katrina did here at the office. Baton Rouge is much higher and further inland than New Orleans. Still, the impact could be severe with power and telecommunications interruptions.

Note: all the preparations discussed below will be complete before close of business Friday. FastTrackers will be getting evening updates from our server in Arizona Friday evening, through Labor Day, and likely Tuesday. We will evacuate a single employee with a fully loaded computer out of the storm path. Our basic functions can be run from a single PC  in a hotel room downloading to a remote server. Evening updates could be delayed 60-90 minutes to about 8:15PM Eastern time while the download to the remote server takes place.

FastTrack Disaster Control- February 2008 Update

We've taken advantage of Microsoft's virtual server technology. Using this technology we can transport the three critical computer environments from machine to machine without  a total system rebuild. Not only does this make us less vulnerable to computer failure, but also we can now operate through a server bank located in a major, secure facility in Arizona (godaddy.com).

With this technology we can send and receive everything we need with a laptop and operate from a hotel or Starbucks internet link in another state. The  evening update would then be placed on the Arizona  server. DNS redirection would send your request for evening updates to the remote server instead of our standard server.

We've actually used these procedures on real FastTrackers. Users were totally unaware that their updates were coming from the Arizona  during this period. We have now made this a part of our facility plan.

It is important to our subscribers that FastTrack services be available every market day. Although our offices are in Louisiana, the building is 50 above sea level, 70 miles from the Gulf beaches, and protected from local backwater flooding by 4-foot levees.

We operate under the following guidelines.

• All our critical computers are redundant.
• Since Katrina, we have updated our power backup to include the latest generation of UPS integrated with a diesel generator.
• The critical computers are programmed to operate standalone without connection to a central file server or to other in house machines.
• There are two Internet service providers.  AT&T below ground, and a Godaddy offsite server arrangement.
• The FTComm program, along with internet redirection services that allow customers to access our servers regardless of where connected to the internet.
• Nightly, data and programs are copied off site.
• A large desktop-replacement laptop is always ready to be taken off site. This single machine is capable of performing all critical data-updates, FTP server communications, and customer database access.
• Our customer support phone system uses voice over IP (Vonage). The Vonage devices (buy them at Walmart) are about the size of a sardine can. They are easy to transport to another internet access point anywhere in the world. They start taking calls to our regular phone numbers within a minute of being reconnected.
• Our employees are each cross trained in at two or more areas including technical support, update data processing, computer programming, and customer service. This not only helps us survive bad weather, but also makes vacation scheduling and staff turnover much easier to manage.

FastTrack 6-acre Campus Photos from Katrina

Brown office roof in the two photos  below

History of Storms and FastTrack

Since 1989, we have weathered three serious storms, Hurricanes Andrew , Katrina, and Rita . Two passed within 60 miles of FastTrack offices. Rita was more than a 100 miles away, but was a huge storm. We experienced no facility damage (trees are a different matter), but were without electric utility power for 5 days  after Andrew, 8 hours with Katrina, and 12 hours during Rita.. We have never missed an evening update due to weather.

We appreciate the patience and good wishes from FastTrackers everywhere. Bear in mind, that except in the 20-30 mile wide path of the eye of a hurricane, conditions are not as dramatic as portrayed on TV although flooding and power outages can be widespread.

Katrina news coverage was almost entirely contained in the yellow circle although the entire area in the inset square is heavily populated. Note the Gulf and lake water exposure of the New Orleans area. It wasn't the wind, it was the salt water flooding that caused the problems. FT does NOT have this kind of exposure in Baton Rouge.

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