Extreme weather will inflict chaos on infrastructure
In the coming years, extreme weather events will become more frequent and widespread, devastating areas of the world that typically don’t experience them and amplifying the destruction in areas that do. Exposing deficiencies in technical and physical infrastructure, these events will cause major disruption and damage to IT systems and assets. Data centers will be significantly impacted, with dependent organizations losing access to services and data, and Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) will be put at risk.
Widespread droughts will force governments to divert water traditionally used to cool data centers, resulting in unplanned outages. In coastal areas and river basins, catastrophic flooding, hurricanes, typhoons or monsoons will hit key infrastructure such as the electrical grid and telecommunication systems. Wildfires will lead to prolonged power outages, stretching continuity arrangements to breaking point. The impact of extreme weather events on local staff, who may be unwilling or unable to get to their workplace, will put operational capability in jeopardy. The magnitude of extreme weather events -- and their prevalence in areas that have not previously been prone to them -- will create havoc for organizations that have not prepared for their impact.