Quick OIT response gets Clippinger back online after water leak
Infrastructure team provides same-day service in June 9 incident
June 11, 2009
By Sean O'Malley
Liquids and computers don't mix. Just ask the staff at the Service Desk, where hardly a day goes by without a beverage-soaked laptop coming in for repair. Network infrastructure, on the other hand, usually is immune to such damage, since it's kept locked away in closets and maintenance rooms.
On the morning of June 9, though, a boiler room water leak inundated three of OIT's communications closets in Clippinger Hall. The flood destroyed four network switches and three UPS units, leaving half the building without wired or wireless Internet access. A few individuals also lost wired telephone service during the incident.
John Perry, the first OIT technician to arrive on the scene at around 10:15 am, found water pouring out of the communications closet ceilings. When network technicians Bill Harris and Dave Dupler arrived a short while later to assess the damage, water was still dripping onto switches and shorted-out UPS units.
According to Harris, approximately 182 people lost Internet access during the incident. Telephone service was less affected, with only a few individuals having problems. OIT was able to restore service to the second and third floors by 2:00 pm, and the first floor came back online at 3:00 pm.
Faculty who spoke with Harris and Dupler in the halls during the cleanup were surprised and pleased to learn that the building would be back online that same day. "They thought they'd be down for a couple of days," Harris said. "So the reaction was, 'Wow, great!' when we told them how soon we'd be done."
