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Out of 10 markets AT&T said it surveyed for a national study on business continuity planning, the telecom giant said Miami businesses are best prepared to recover from disasters.

AT&T (NYSE: T) said the results were not surprising after two years of extreme hurricane activity.

Of the city's information technology decision-makers surveyed, AT&T said 80 percent said their business has a continuity plan in place, compared with 73 percent nationally.

The company also said 54 percent of the respondents with a plan said their plans have been updated in the last six months and 36 percent said their plans have been tested in the last six months.

Miami IT executives are also are more likely to take action when the government issues warnings about impending disasters, the company said.

AT&T also reported 85 percent Miami companies that have a business continuity plan in place said they implement specific protective actions when the state or federal government issues an alert for an impending disaster, compared with 50 percent overall, on average.

Some of that preparation may come from learning things the hard way.

AT&T said 59 percent of Miami IT decision-makers it interviewed said their organization has suffered from a disaster, more than twice the 28 percent overall average.

The company said 85 percent of those who said they suffered a disaster in the region were impacted by Hurricane Wilma, alone. An additional 54 percent said they were affected by Katrina, while Hurricane Rita impacted 37 percent of those who said they suffered from a disaster in Miami.

The fortunes of a region follow those of its businesses and A&T measured the cost of failure to plan in hard dollars.

It said 23 percent of the companies it surveyed said disaster had cost them as much as $100, 000 per day.

Also, 5 percent said that it cost them $1 million dollars or more per day.

"It's evident that for many companies in the Miami area, the disastrous events in recent years have been a real wake-up call," said Kenneth J. Smith, director of AT&T's network disaster recovery team. "That's the good news. But it's disconcerting how many companies are still putting their businesses and future at risk by not adequately planning for the next hurricane or other disaster."

AT&T said its results are based on 1,000 telephone interviews Western Wats and Opinion Research Corp. conducted of chief information officers and other senior IT executives from companies with more than $10 million in annual revenue.

The more than 100 interviews were in 10 markets: Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City, St. Louis, Seattle and Washington D.C.

The interviews took place Jan. 17 to May 9.

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