Royally Kranked

Friday, November 04, 2005

Personally, if a catastrophe occured, I'm not too fucking worried about the ability of the Texas Lottery to continue unabated

The House committee that oversees the Texas Lottery is investigating claims by a senior lottery systems analyst that agency management misled lawmakers about an emergency control center that doesn't work, blocked open record requests and bullied employees into secrecy at the $3.5 billion agency......Charles' first accusation is that the lottery's disaster recovery or business resumption site — a concrete bunker — which the Legislature required state agencies to develop in the mid-1990s, "has never been operational."

We're not just talking about a bunker, it almost sounds like NORAD South

The Austin site, which cost more than $1.3 million to build and maintain, includes a steel-reinforced concrete bunker-like structure with walls 3 feet thick, according to several employees who have seen or helped develop the site.

"It could probably take a nuclear blast," said Bill Hensler, a former network services manager for the lottery. "It was overkill. It was purely overkill."

Walls 3 feet thick seem trivialized by the fact it's the lottery that's supposed to go forward in the event of another large-scale terrorist attack or natural catastrophe

But, of course, there's almost always a kicker to stories like these, and this being Texas, that's an even more sure bet

Hensler and Charles both say computer equipment was installed at the site, but it didn't properly receive data that would have enabled lottery employees to carry out their duties if a disaster destroyed the lottery's downtown Austin headquarters.

D'OH!!!

1 Comments:

  • Why, for fucks sake, would the lottery, ANY lottery, matter if we had such world wide problems? I mean come on, we start aiming nuclear bombs at each other and when all is said and done, the first thing Texans are gonna say (assuming any survive) is where can I get a lottery ticket?

    What the holy fuck?

    Ok it's probably me misunderstanding your post! It's got to be...right?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:45 PM  

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