2-14 Data Loss WebQuest

The Scenario
Name of the organisation	Mukilteo City Council
Type of organisation, for example, public company, government organisation, public utility	Government Organisation (Council)
What happened?	All of the city’s important data and computer information is wiped out.
What caused the incident?	A server failure as Dave Varga, Mukilteo's information technology director, left his office station in order to work on a fibre-optic line.
How did it affect the organisation?	All of the city’s data referring to planning and financial documents, ordinances, resolutions and city council meeting minutes was lost. Meaning city control was at a standstill.
How did it affect their customers/clients?	As the loss was for only a week,  there was little effect to the public of Mukilteo, and the council was able to resume as normal.
Was data lost?	100% of data was lost.
How did the organisation overcome the problem?	The city paid $36,000 to a Minnesota firm to retrieve the data, and about 95 percent of it was recovered.  The City Council plans on spending about $180,000 for an entirely new system, to prevent a similar system failure.
Was there anything else the organisation could do?	To prevent the same loss happening, large amounts of often backups should be created and stored in a safe location e.g. safe.