Fire at New Orleans City Hall data centre during Hurricane Ida

What happened

On 31 August 2021, during Hurricane Ida, a fire broke out in the data centre on the third floor of New Orleans City Hall in Louisiana. The fire was quickly put out, but the facility was taken offline. The hurricane had brought power plants offline and damaged transmission lines, so City Hall had shifted to diesel generators. The cause of the fire was not known at the time of reporting.

According to a council member, the fire was checked inside the walls to make sure it had not spread up them. Council email systems went offline, and all nola.gov websites were down, including the city's emergency preparedness site. The city said it would share hurricane information through social media and text messages.

Contributing factors

Loss of grid supply after the hurricane meant the building ran on diesel generators. A council member told local media there may have been something wrong with the generator, but this was not confirmed. The cause of the fire was not known.

Lessons learned

1. Operators of critical facilities on generator power should test generator performance under extended islanded running and confirm fuel and controls before a storm arrives.
2. Fire detection and suppression should cover wall cavities and risers, since a fire can spread vertically out of sight.
3. Public-facing emergency communications should be hosted independently of the building that houses critical IT, so they remain available if that site fails.

More lessons on weather and external hazards, detection and monitoring, emergency response and public communication, from every incident on the register.

Source

datacenterdynamics.com