[BC] KOMO, Seattle building fire

[Chris Gebhardt]

Charles Ring wrote:
> Chris Gebhardt wrote:
>> AP and others reporting building fire at Fisher Plaza in Seattle last 
>> night around 11pm local time.
>> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009415646_webfisherplaza04.html
>>
>> Apparently, affected stations are running from backup facilities.
>>
>> Not so lucky would be any datacenter customers.   According to what I 
>> have found the emergency generators were "fried" because they got 
>> sprayed by fire sprinklers.   If that's true, that's a pretty 
>> hair-brained setup.
>>   
> 
> I wonder if the sprinklers were near the generators because they were 
> _required_ by an unthinking zero-tolerance enforcement of codes?

Then it's also an unthinking engineer or facilities manager that didn't 
take that into account.

Also, as provided in our DR plan, if our generator fails, we have a 
standing reservation to have a rental unit rolled up.  Response time on 
that is 4 hours.  (Also, if we are on generator for >4 hours, we put a 
spare on standby.)

Nobody could possibly pre-engineer for every failure.   However, in a 
"mission critical" facility, you really need to have the wherewithal 
(engineering and financial) to be able to recover very rapidly.

--
Chris Gebhardt
VIRTBIZ Internet Services
chris at virtbiz.com | (972) 485-4125