Texas, the Lone Star State, experiences its fair share of inclement weather. Tornados are prevalent from April through June; hurricane season is from June to November, while May to September is monsoon season and prone to flooding. Unfortunately, natural disasters in Texas and the greater Houston region have become frequent, dangerous, and costly, resulting in deaths and monetary losses.
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), from January 1984 to April 2023, in Houston’s Harris County alone, there have been seven tropical storms, three floods, four severe storms, six fires, and three major ice storms.
Prolific Natural Disasters Striking Texas in the Past Few Decades
June 2001 Tropical Storm Allison
Allison devastated southeast Texas. The storm developed from a tropical wave in the northern Gulf of Mexico and struck the upper Texas coast shortly thereafter. It brought heavy rainfall across southeast and east Texas, with the highest amounts calculated at 28 inches. The worst flooding was across the Houston metropolitan area in Harris County, where 30,000 residents became homeless after 73,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, and 22 lives were lost. The storm caused more than $5 billion in damages in Harris County alone.
September 2005 Hurricane Rita
Rita hit South Texas and Louisiana less than 30 days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, killing 1,200 and costing an estimated $75 billion in damages. Winds from Rita reached 180 mph and produced 90 tornadoes over the southern U.S. The hurricane caused seven people to lose their lives and about $10 billion in damages.
September 2008 Hurricane Ike
Ike brought 110 mph winds, making landfall over Galveston Island as a Category 2 hurricane. Storm rainfall was approximately 19 inches in southeastern Texas. It is the 6th costliest hurricane in U.S. history, with about $19 billion in damages.
August 2017 Hurricane Harvey
Harvey was one of the most expensive tropical cyclones in U.S. history. Hurricane Harvey landed on the Texas coast as a Category 4 storm with winds measuring more than 130 mph. Within five days, the storm produced more than 60 inches of rain in Houston, flooding and destroying more than 300,000 buildings and homes, killing 36 people in Harris County, and causing an estimated $125 billion in damages.
February 2021 Winter Storm Uri
Uri impacted millions of Americans from the northwest to the central and eastern states with road closures, power outages, loss of heat, and burst pipes. Texas residents had four days below-freezing temperatures, with a reported 10 million people without power. Every county in Texas, a total of 254, was under the winter storm warning. Houston spent 44 consecutive hours below freezing. The extreme conditions caused or were a known contributor to the deaths of 246 people in Texas, 4 million people in Texas lost electricity during the storm, while 49% lost access to running water.
Prevention is Key when it comes to Data Center Uptime
To ensure business continuity and uptime of mission-critical operations in the face of natural disasters partnering with the right data center is paramount. Netrality offers fail-safe services and solutions for organizations.1301 Fannin is the epitome of operational excellence. Our data center provides:
> Two power grids deliver electricity to the building
> A solid architecture with two generator farms supplying primary and redundant backup power at 2N+1 with 60,000 gallons of fuel supply — capable of sustaining power to the building for 15 days
> Critical systems backed up by generators enable facilities to stay open to help communities in times of need
> A flood-proof foundation — built outside of the designated 500-year floodplain
> Fortified windows to withstand 200 mph winds
> Strategic interconnection from the core to the edge
> Disaster recovery
> Business continuity — our data center has never lost power since its inception
Cost of Downtime
According to the Uptime Institutes Annual Outages 2023 Analysis, two-thirds of outages cost organizations more than $100,000. A few most common causes of major network-related outages were hardware failure, firmware or software error, cyberattack, third-party network provider failure, network or congestion issues, and weather-related events. Those organizations that avoided network-related downtime attributed it to network redundancy and resiliency. Let’s change gears and look at the holistic view of downtime — lost productivity, data loss, and irreparable damage to your brand. All of which result in loss of customers and revenue.
In 2022, Netrality achieved 100% uptime across our portfolio. Our owner-operated buildings have redundancy, uninterruptible power supply systems (UPS), and fail-safe procedures to ensure business continuity.
The Netrality Advantage
The effects of inclement weather may be detrimental to your organization, whether the disaster is a flood, severe storm, hurricane, or tornado. Disasters not only take lives but leave organizations in ruins. Natural disasters are bound to happen. Preparation is one-half of the solution. Partnering with Netrality is the other half. We offer fail-safe solutions for organizations by providing redundancy, reliability, security, and a safe environment for your data, employees, tenants, and customers. Contact us today to learn more about Netrality’s 1301 Fannin data center!