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I haven't laughed this hard in days: The fire alarm klaxon went off and the siren warning of imminent halon gas release was screaming. We started to panic but
by nate_meurer 13y ago
I haven't laughed this hard in days:
The fire alarm klaxon went off and the siren warning of imminent halon gas release was screaming. We started to panic but the data center manager shouted over the din, "Don't worry, the halon system failed its acceptance test last week. It's disabled and nothing will happen."
He was half right, the primary halon system indeed failed to discharge. But the secondary halon system observed that the primary had conked and instantly did its duty, which was to deal with Dire Disasters. It had twice the capacity and six times the discharge rate.
- d0 13y agoI was nearly the victim of a situation like this in the late 90s. There was a power failure site-wide and the generator failed to start in time (water in the fuel). There were three of us in the machine room at the time of the power incident. Unfortunately due to some insane security requirements, the doors lock in a failsafe situation (this was a UK MoD facility) voiding all health and safety laws. One of the idiots decided to light up a cigarette whilst we were sitting in there in the very dim emergency lighting. Turns out the power system for the halon was still active and the 60 second alarm went off. Fortunately we hit the stop button on the wall to prevent it being dumped on us. New pants all round that was.