MIA Fuel Farm Fire

I was on one of those hundreds of American flights into MIA that were canceled because of the huge fuel farm fire at the airport.  I ended up taking a different airline into Orlando and driving to Miami.  (I never understood people ruining their vacation waiting for a direct flight when there are other airports or driving is an option, but I digress.) On my four-hour drive, I had a lot of time to think about the pros and cons of fuel farms, where fuel is aggregated for dispensing.  While it’s still premature to talk about what caused the fire and how to prevent future ones — or whether fuel farms are vulnerable in and of themselves — it’s not too early to review our airport contracts and see whether we can minimize our own vulnerability in the event of a fuel farm fire or other factor cutting off our regular supply of fuel.  Do we have back up plans if our supply is cut off temporarily?  Disaster recovery plans should include how to manage with temporary cutoffs of critical supplies.  And sometimes disasters pose economic opportunities for those who are ready to step in.  So in this type of situation, would we have been prepared to temporarily add trucks to our fleet to help in the distribution of fuel to airliners?