As many are aware, the Houston, TX area has experienced severe flooding in the past 48 hours. Some parts of Harris County received over 16 inches of rain in a 12-hour period. To put it into perspective, the normal rainfall for the Houston area in April is just 3.3 inches. As multiple buildings and homes around the city were flooded in hundreds of neighborhoods throughout Harris County, many are asking us how our Houston data centers are holding up. Our data centers are prepared to withstand this kind of weather and remain unaffected. During and after the storms, we experienced no power outages, flooding or staff evacuations due to the storms and record-breaking precipitation.
Storm Monitoring & Preparation
Our data center staff is always prepared for extreme weather conditions in all of our locations. Data Foundry’s 24x7x365 staff constantly monitors weather radars for storms and other potentially threatening weather events in our Network Operations Center (NOC). In addition to the regular staff on site, our on-call facility technicians are mobilized to the sites whenever a storm, high winds or flood warning or advisory is issued by the National Weather Service. Our data centers are stocked with food and water in the event that staff or clients must remain on site due to extreme weather conditions. We also provide amenities like cots, showers and washing machines for unexpected extended stays.
Data Centers Built with Floods & Hurricanes in Mind
Data Foundry’s Houston facilities were built on land elevated above the 500-year flood plain. Due to our construction and site planning, our data centers remain untouched by the recent flood waters.
In addition to flooding, our data centers are also built to withstand high winds and damage from hurricanes and tropical storms. Our Houston 2 data center is built to withstand winds of up to 185 mph, and both our Houston data centers have redundant power feeds as well as backup diesel generators in the event of any power outages.
