Fire Damages E&P Offices But Doesn't Stop The News p.7

By: George Garneau

AN EARLY-MORNING electrical fire Nov. 14 destroyed the computerized page makeup system at E&P's New York headquarters and disrupted operations briefly.
Fortunately for the weekly magazine, the fire struck just hours after the Nov. 16 issue went to the printer via ISDN phone lines.
The fire, which struck about midnight in the room housing most of the company's computers, was extinguished quickly by an overhead sprinkler system, but not before smoke and water damaged other equipment, and crept into the newsroom and the main office.
Co-publisher Chris Phillips estimated total damage at about $100,000. Most of the 60 or so employees were sent home Thursday (Nov. 14).
The UNIX system used for circulation and for directories was down for a day. Subscribers who called got no answer, but customer service was restored the next day.
The magazine, which begins its weekly production cycle every Thursday, restarted its 15-year-old Mycro-Tek proprietary front-end system the next day. Despite taking a shower under a sprinkler head, it worked, even though one of two controllers was already down due to an unrelated malfunction. Freedom System Integrators, Mycro-Tek's successor, fully supported the restoration and had spare parts on site the next day, Phillips said. The system was operational the next day and running at full speed by Monday.
The Macintosh-based Quark pagination system, located closer to the light table that was the apparent source of the fire, suffered heavy damage from smoke and water. Fire destroyed computer disks, documentation and furniture.
"I was overwhelmed by the physical damage," said art director Hector Marrero.
The company bought three Macintosh Power PC 7300s on Friday and set them up in a conference room. By Monday, they were loaded with software, up and running, and producing pages.
Despite missing two days of its production cycle, Editor & Publisher magazine was on schedule to meeting its regular Wednesday deadline.
Managers expected none of the company's other publications to be affected.
"All in all we were very lucky," Phillips said. "Lucky that it happened on a Wednesday night, that the fire was put out properly by the sprinkler and that the fire company came on time. This is a company where the employees worked with us and all pitched in to make sure we didn't miss a beat."
He said he plans to conduct a postmortem with managers to determine what needs to be done to prepare for problems that may arise in the future.
"This should be a lesson for people who leave their Rolodex on their desk exposed," Marrero said. "It should be covered. I lost roughly 10 years worth of resources and don't know how I'm going to replace them."