One company performed an offsite backup and stored it in a bank safety deposit box as per standard disaster recovery practice. During hurrican Katrina, the company facilities flooded and the bank flooded too! It took 3 months before the water receded enough to retrieve the backups from the bank's safety deposit boxes!
When the World Trade Center came down, it took out a major telco exchange. Replacing the equipment was trivial compared to replacing the cabling infrastructure. Read this article on the magnitude of repairing the infrastructure.
The most successful courses that I've teach have a very high ratio of lab time (2/3) to theory time (1/3). One of the most enjoyable courses was a basic electricity course that I struggled with designing because of the time limit imposed - it was impossible to divide it into a traditional theory/lab split without losing significant content. The solution was to make it a 100% lab course and teach the theory on a need to know basis - Just In Time delivery of content!
Based on my experience, it always makes me wonder why we have theory classes at all. Most theory content can be easily researched by the student when directed so. I know that the real reason is an economical one and not an educational one. It is inexpensive to fill up a large lecture hall and pay for just one instructor to mindlessly lecture for a hour or more. It is expensive to pay many instructors or instructional assistants required to tutor small lab classes for hands-on learning.
We are each entitled to our own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts. -- Patrick Moynihan