When it rains it pours for Steve

Steve writes...

War Story: When I was doing Netware admin in the 90's, I was working on a new office fitout and we had just finished installing the comms room with brand new HP Net Servers and network gear.

There was also a plumber and his apprentice working on the water based fire suppression system.

To this day no one it still exactly sure what happened, but, the plumber and apprentice both went to the main shutoff valve and when they turned it on the fire suppression system failed and flooded the entire comms room! The water flowed for about 20 minutes and no one knew where the plumber or his apprentice where. Once we found them and had the water switched off we began to assess the damage.

The underfloor breakers had tipped early so the damage was minimised, however the DDS3 library was completely flooded and never work properly again, but the two HP Netservers where fine, I took them apart and let them dry out and after a week they fire up OK.

The switches where also fine. However we did get the mains power equipment and UPS replaced just for safety.