In an article about the lack of systems for accessing information either to avoid disasters or to recover from disasters, we are given a peek at how one group of people managed to overcome the obstacles in a very human way after September 11.

Manhattan financial traders' plans for recovering computer data in case of disaster were of no use after September 11, because so many had died, including those who knew the backup systems and the passwords.

So the traders, [one corporate executive] said, tried to guess: "They talked about where they went on vacation, what their kids' names were, what their wives' names were, what their dogs' names were, you know, every imaginable thing about their personal life." The traders did it: they broke into the ID's and into the necessary systems, and were ready when the bond market opened a few days later. "No one said, `Our technology saved us,' or `Our plan really worked,' the executive said. "To a person, they said, `It was people.' "