Atlanta Data Centers Ride Out Tornado

Last night's tornado in downtown Atlanta came within blocks of the city's major Internet connectivity hub, but no major data center service outages have been reported. The tornado, which struck at 9:45 pm, caused damage at the Georgia Dome, CNN Center and Centennial Olympic Park. Those facilites are about three blocks from 56 Marietta Street, the carrier hotel property owned by Telx/GI Partners. There are also data center operations at 55 Marietta Street. Photos from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution document the damage in the area, including parts of Marietta Street.

About 15,000 residents in downtown were without electricity, but 56 Marietta reported no interruptions in grid power due to the storm. "We've been running on full power," said Ilissa Miller of Telx. "Everything is up and running and our facilities were not affected. There's a tremendous amount of glass on some parts of Marietta Street, but we've been operating as usual."

In a mid-day update, Telx advised customers of "a significant amount of debris" along Marietta Street, including glass, sheet metal, concrete, and other objects.

"Atlanta City Officials are requesting that unless an Emergency event occurs to stay away from the downtown area at this time so crews can get the streets cleaned and the debris removed," wrote Bill McNutt, the operations manager for Telx at 56 Marietta, who said "there appears to be no damage to the facility neither inside or outside at this time."

"Because of our location between two Georgia Power sub-stations, the Telx building has been running on Commercial power continuously and has not experienced any loss of power during or after the storms," said McNutt.