Re: generators, etc....

[Paul Ferguson <pferguso () cisco com>]

At 08:11 PM 10/12/96 -0500, Sean Donelan wrote:

> Stuff happens. No one can predict or plan for everything.  But you can
> have procedures in place to combat the biggest problem in diasasters, poor
> communication.  Partial knowledge about the real situation happens when
> the real information isn't made available.  Techies sometimes get too
> wrapped up in the hardware, redudant fiber, generators, bomb-resistant
> shelters; and forget about keeping people informed.

Here's what the latest issue of RISKS Digest [18.52] had to say.

- paul

[snip]

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Date: Sat, 12 Oct 1996 13:48:41 -0700
From: "Peter G. Neumann" <Neumann () csl sri com>
Subject: Rats take down Stanford power and Silicon Valley Internet service 

Two rats crawled through an underground cable conduit into a cabinet of
power switching gear adjacent to the Stanford University cogeneration plant,
and caused an explosion that cut off power to the Stanford area beginning
around 7:30pm on Thursday evening, 10 Oct 1996, and continuing until 3:30pm
Friday afternoon.  The BBN Planet hub (Internet Point of Presence, or PoP)
at the Stanford University Data Center remained in operation for a few hours
on standby battery power, but then gave out around 9pm Thursday; it came
back up around 4:30pm, an hour after Stanford restored power.  To name just
a few, Bay-Area BARNet users at Stanford, U.C. Berkeley, Apple, Sun,
Hewlett-Packard, Lawrence Livermore (partially), and SRI were cut off from
the Internet.  The *Los Angeles Times* and *San Francisco Chronicle* on-line
sites were also off the air.  Because I had no Internet access yesterday, I
held up RISKS-18.52 -- thus enabling me to include this item adding to our
RISKS archives collection of rodent-induced outages.  (Long-time readers
recall that SRI alone has contributed four fresh-fried squirrels resulting
in power outages.)  [Sources: On-line messages and a front-page *San
Francisco Chronicle*, 12 Oct 1996 item]

Evidently, the horse is out of the BARNet, and the rats found the weak lynx.
They sure put a ro-dent in the day for many BayAreans.  Perhaps your mouse
will click on a tale of its own.  At any rate, this is just one more saga in
the weak-link-in-the-infrastructure department.  But I'm surprised that
power-system technology has not found a way to develop rodent-tolerant
circuits.

  [With SysAdmins and others pacing the halls at SRI waiting for whatever,
  Doug Moran remarked that keeping around a few fresh-frozen electrofried
  rodents is allegedly standard practice for purveyors of power; it is then
  very easy to have a fallback alibi when no other cause can be found.]

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