Fisher Plaza Fire Disrupts Stations, Knocks Out Web Sites

Seattle PI ^ | 7/3/2009 | Seattle PI

[Ramius]

Posted: 9:02 am PDT July 3, 2009 Updated: 9:16 am PDT July 3, 2009

SEATTLE -- A fire at Fisher Plaza has disrupted stations that broadcast from the building near the Seattle Center and many Seattle-based Internet sites.

KOMO Radio said the fire in an electrical vault about 11 p.m. Thursday forced the evacuation of the building and caused the sprinkler system to activate.

The fire and water damage knocked out a large data center in the building that handles many Seattle-based web sites.

Authorize.net, which handles credit card transactions for tens of thousands of e-commerce vendors, is one of the sites that has been knocked offline. The company is posting updates on the situation via Twitter: http://twitter.com/authorizenet/.

KOMO Radio is broadcasting Friday from a building at its transmitter on Queen Anne hill in Seattle, and KOMO TV broadcasted morning segments from a truck in Kerry Park

[Ramius]

This has taken KVI radio off the air as well. So no Kirby Wilbur show this morning. :-(

Kirby's twitter page: http://twitter.com/kirbywilburshow

May have updates as time goes on.

[Ramius]

Pingaroonie... Sionnsar are you the keeper of the WA ping list?

[Ramius]

KVI’s web host must have been in the same data center. It’s not responding either.

http://www.kvi.com

[freekitty]

So much for technology.

[Ramius]

This outage of Authorize.net is really causing some widespread problems with transaction processing. The data center forums are crackling with angry customers.

[csvset]

This outage of Authorize.net is really causing some widespread problems with transaction processing.

Cash, don't leave home withou it.

[Nervous Tick]

Thanks for the post.

This nailed all of my websites and my main email.

As the article alludes, Support Lady confirmed that it wasn’t the fire per se that put ‘em down, but the sprinklers.

Whatever happened to Halon (or its politically correct substitute) instead of water sprinklers in a data center? Duh!

[HairOfTheDog]

Huh - I had to check my system really quick when I saw this... Our servers are right within a block or so of there.

[HairOfTheDog]

Oh - and it’s up. But our office isn’t answering.

[Ramius]

Yah, there are some Halon systems that work in data centers but there’s a surprising number that just use water sprinklers. Sounds like this was a fairly small fire in an electrical space that set off the sprinklers elsewhere in the building.

Ouch.

[Psycho_Bunny]

AdHost.com is the internet host referenced. Not only do I live across the street from them, I have a couple registration pages for my employer's website, that redirect to adhost hosted servers.

So the fire engines woke me up, and some of my pages are offline.

[Nervous Tick]

>> there’s a surprising number that just use water sprinklers.

That’s scary. One more question to ask when vetting a provider, I guess. Thanks for the insight.

[Ramius]

Ah, I see. Here’s an update posted on adhost.com. This appears to be a temporary page, not their main site:

---

UPDATE: 07/03/09 - 09:30 AM
Hello:
We have been advised by the building engineering team that they anticipate restoring power to the Plaza East building in plus or minus 4 hours. We sincerely hope this is an accurate number and, if not, we will let you know as soon as we receive new information from the engineers.

When power is restored we will have staff on site to provide any remote-hands assistance you may need to bring your equipment back on line. Our phone system will also be operational once power is restored. As such, if you have any special requirements or require special assistance you may send mail to support@adhost.com or call 206-404-9500.

We anticipate a large volume of requests. Please be patient if you have difficulty reaching someone at Adhost. We have brought in a full complement of staff and we will address any and all issues that may arise.

Regards,

Michael Smith

---

Hello:
Beginning at approximately 11:18 PM on July 2nd and continuing through the present time Fisher Plaza experienced a significant power event that required all power systems including street power, UPS, and Generator power to be completely shut down in Plaza East. The event is ongoing and, at this point, we do not have a ETA for service restoration. Please note that Adhost’s Plaza West facility is not affected by this event.

The Adhost phone system is not operational as a result of this event, but we are fully staffed and responding to emails sent to support@adhost.com . Until further notice this will be the only conduit for communicating with Adhost. Please be patient with any requests sent into the Support email. We will process all requests as quickly as we can and we promise to answer every query.

If you have specific needs for assistance for powering up your devices, please send email to Support with specific instructions. We will do our best to accommodate your requirements.

We apologize for the nature and extent of this event and are doing everything possible to restore service as quickly as possible. Please send all questions and concerns to support@adhost.com.

Sincerely,

Michael Smith
Chief Technical Officer
Adhost Internet, LLC

[Ramius]

There are a number of things to consider, and it’s not necessarily always better or worse to have a water system. Lots of things to balance. Costs are not trivial, or maintenance. Halon-replacement systems have their own issues too. So it’s complicated.

What they do also are “pre-action” sprinklers that use water, but the pipes are kept dry to lower the risk of leaks.

[Nervous Tick]

tks

[MPB]

Another affected customer that hosts systems at the colo there is Allrecipes (http://allrecipes.com)

Bummer... hate to see the local companies taking a hit because of something like this.

[sionnsar]

Yup. Am traveling most of the next 4 weeks (and some out of Internet range) so updates may be delayed.

Thanks to Ramius for the ping.

Say WA? Evergreen State ping

Quick link: WA State Board

FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.

Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.

[Libertina]

Thanks for the breaking news on KVI/Kirby
(And Happy Independence Day!)

[rahbert]

and no mark levin in the evening...