UPDATE: Power restored after manhole fires zap electricity

Those registry employees definitely needed another day off . . .

power to buildings on the lower side of boylston street all lost power. from 500 down.

Its not their fault this happened and if I were one of those employees I would not be happy with that comment.

Is it true the whole Hancock building is out?

Kudos to the Boston Police Officers who did a wonderful job directing traffic during the rush hour commute this morning. There were actually more effective than the traffic signals.

It's Stuart Street, not Stewart.

Nice to know the Registry has no off-site backup capacity for all our records and private information to protect them against hackers.

All of Boylston is out too. I just went all the way to work to get sent home! Woo-hoo!

because they work sooooo hard, right ??

As of about 830am John Hancock tower was still without power. Many companies started sending people home...

Oh, please. Can everyone just stop about state, registry employees. I know of many private companies that have many days off. State and registry employees don't get the day off after Thanksgiving or days off during Christmas week that many companies I know give their employees paid without using their personal vacation time. HOW DO YOU WANT THE REGISTRY TO OPEN WITH NO COMPUTERS WORKING AND HELP THE PEOPLE ? I, as a state employee, know many state workers that work hard, if not harder than private sector employees. There are bad apples in private sector also. So get over it. Always something to complain about. I'm sure
some idiot will blame state workers for this manhole fire so that we can get a day off. PLEASE!!! ENOUGH!!!

It would be neat to see them working with actual paper paperwork. Not efficient at all, but sort of old-timey. Oh, maybe THAT's why they have the day off.

Eggman is probably one of those people who walks into the Registry with the wrong paperwork, and then throws a fit when the RMV employees, who are extremely limited by law in what they can and cannot accept, send him away to get the proper paperwork; or else he might be someone who has an unpaid parking ticket in some community, and then throws a fit because the RMV denies him a new license or registration (as they are bound, by law, to do). If Eggman wants to be so critical of the RMV, let him get a job there, and find out how little it pays. Let him deal with the parade of abuse from the public....

The outpatient physicians' building at Tufts Medical Center – known as the Biewend Building – has been impacted by the manhole explosion in the Theatre District. Due to the resulting power outage, patient appointments for physicians in the Biewend Building on Tremont Street have been cancelled for today. All other buildings on the Tufts Medical Center and Floating Hospital for Children campus remain open and all operations continue as normal.

Physician offices in the Biewend Building include:

Dermatology
Orthopedics
Ophthalmology/New England Eye Center
General Medical Associates
Infectious Disease
Endocrinology
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Rheumatology
Neurology and
Pulmonary

Patients with appointments scheduled for today in these practices should call their physician’s office to confirm that their appointment has been cancelled and to reschedule the appointment. Anyone with other questions can call the main hospital number at 617-636-5000. If a patient is having an emergency, they should come to the Emergency Department at 830 Washington Street.

It would be nice if the Globe could publish a map of the affected area.

blame the T.

Is the John Hancock (old) building closed?

i couldnt take a showerr this morning, it was so cold, i feel like a grease ball

Was told by my employer that our office on Berkeley would be without power until at least noon.

Old Hancock building (197 Clarendon & 200 Berkeley) is also closed for the day.

Eggman,
If you had to deal with folks displaying your charming attitude and personality every day for 8 hrs, you could use an extra day off too! You have no idea how miserable people can be to public servants. Just not worth it.

Power has been restored to Tufts Medical Center’s Biewend Building. Patients with afternoon appointments can come to their doctors’ offices as scheduled if that is still convenient for the patient. Patients who have already rescheduled their appointments have a choice: they can keep their new appointment date or come in this afternoon as originally scheduled. Staff will be calling as many patients as possible to ensure each patient understands the options. Patients with questions should call their physician’s office. Power was disrupted to the building this morning as a result of the manhole fire on Tremont Street. We regret the inconvenience this situation has caused our patients and appreciate their understanding.

According to the article: "It also shut down the computers of the Registry of Motor Vehicles, which was forced to close all of its 35 branches across the state, according to RMV spokeswoman Ann Dufresne."

Hasn't the Registry IT staff heard of something called DR/COOP? For you non-geeks, that stands for Disaster Recovery/Continuity Of OPerations. You know, that's where you're supposed to design your IT systems so that they can survive catastrophic events without disrupting service. Pretty much standard operating practice for all but the smallest businesses since 9/11/2001.

And losing power to your main computing center is probably the most common event that virtually all IT staffs plan for.

Oh, that's right. These are the people who brought us The Big Dig...

It would be great if we knew when power was restored to the homes in back bay!

What is it with NStar? They've had a lot of manhole fires recently! A search turns up a manhole explosion in Cambridge earlier this year (May 2) and Downtown Crossing (April 11). Then there was last year's manhole explosion in the South End (September 27).

So that's four explosions/fires in about 14 months. Do they EVER do any maintenance down there, or just wait to fix things after they explode?

Muskie,
You are so right!
My office tries to help folks with their documents, but they scream, swear, threaten or try cajoling to get their way. Try reading what is in front of you before you arrive at an office. That is a great place to start!

Oh and Rich, I may just be a state employee, but the phrase "old-timey" does not appear in the dictionary! Try reading!

Maybe if the RMV employees did not snarl when looking at the people who came in to renew their license or registration, maybe eggman and others would not have such a pissy attitude about them.

Is 175 Berkeley (Liberty Mutual) still closed for the day?

Power's back at 222/500 Berkeley. Been up since around 11am

Yes Hancock employees were sent home this morning.
stan-my gym closed but I was able to shower at the BSC downtown crossing without paying for a say pass..thank you (and my coworkers thank you!)
Strangely, the T seemed to be the only thing that WAS working this morning.

John Hancock security wanted everyone out of the building for safety reasons, I had been there since 6:20am. No computers, no phones, everything was down.

nice job everyone. cool calm and collected.
thx nstar n emergency services!

Why would it affect RMV locations where they did not lose power?

200 Berkeley is closed, there was talk of reopening at 2pm. The power supposedly is back up but not sure if buildings have power yet. I have a disaster recovery call system that gives me updates. I'll post again if I get the call that buildings are up and running.

..Whether you are aware or not, ItalianQueen, ...you just blew a gasket !! and Touchy, touchy NV , why are you guys so uptight!! take a joke, I'm a state worker too. While I find many registry workers uncouth and rude, so what if they got the day off? They should not be held responsible for a manhole fire.

I just found out a friend of mine is a contract worker (Transporation Buiding) who showed up for work today and was told he would not be paid. What a bummer. It's not his fault there was a power outage!! What's wrong with these executive officers who that take advantage of situations like this? The fact they the contract workers came in to work is enough to at least pay them for a half day. This is an awful thing to do to someone who needs that paycheck!!!!!!

Thank goodness I was smart enough to move far away from that god-awful city. Poorly managed infrastructure, rude public employees, angry citizens, bad drivers on horribly marked roads, the T...really, that's human misery in the making, no wonder you guys are all so pissed off all the time.

Hey the registry has gotten better over the years but oh my………the dependency on computers has taken away good ole common sense... I was one of those guys who were waiting in line to get into the registry this morning... Doors opened sharply at 9:00 am....not 8::55, 8:57, 8:58...... just a small point we are all standing outside in the cold and you think common sense would say ok we can let them in 2 minutes early... after all we only pay their salary.... oh well the real kicker was I needed to renew my license... well no computer no renewal...so I say how about giving me a note stating I was at the registry and due to technical difficulty was unable to renew... you no sort of like a hall pass.. Oh know sir, we cant do that .... sir ... you are on your own because we have no policy for common sense... so lets see... I get stopped for what ever reason.. Officer Fife.... sir your license has expired....Yes I know Officer but I was at the registry bright and early but they had technical difficulty.. Officer Fife: Sir that’s your problem .... so away goes my car in tow ... now the hours following this ...well I dont even need to articulate... But judge here is the news clipping telling you the registry computers were down... Judge Barney.. well sir how do I know you were at the registry ... well you don’t but the I asked the nice lady at the registry if she would write me a note but ...oh know I can't do that... I wouldn’t want to have to go to court ..... So much for any common sense ....

John Hancock Tower back open for business.

Hancock building was up and running again by 11am

Why is everyone freaking out on Eggman when all they said was the RMV employees could use an extra day off???

Is that not true? How is that an insult to them?

To all the people complaining about state employees not doing their work. Please stop using your work computer to complain about state employees that do don't do any work, because you weren't doing any work when you commented. The only difference is -- you probably make a lot more money to do nothing but comment on web sites. I am on my own time right now, so don't complain about me.

Also, regarding DR/COOP -- It is awfully nice when you work for a private company that can charge whatever the market bears for its services, which means private companies can usually afford alternate work locations and equipment. State agencies cannot always do this, especially when their budgets keep getting cut. The state has been trying for years to get an alternate site or site (which may or may not have been available to the Registry), but the clowns we elect won't give the funding. Besides what tax payer out there wants to pay double for extra equipment, buildings, software, etc. that will most likely sit there for long periods of time doing nothing.

But Elaine, your friend didn't work, and is on contract basis, that is the gamble when you are a contractor....I don't see the outrage in this situation.

all of you people have way too much time on yor hands

Sometimes the problem with running computer systems isn't that they don't have electricity but there isn't HVAC to keep the computer rooms cool. I wouldn't judge the RMV too harshly unless I knew more about their situation. It ain't simple or cheap to provide for continuity of service. Given what I know about businesses' problems providing for IT continuity I can just imagine how hard it is to justify that sort of planning in a state government that just had to cut many hundreds of millions of dollars from their budget.

As for NStar, stuff happens. They've spent lots of money upgrading the distribution network in Boston over the last couple of years. I'm impressed they got it fixed as quickly as they did.

The Josiah Quincy Upper School was closed around 9:45 A.M. It was a lot of smell in the intersecting of Tremont Street and Oak Street.

This is breaking news...an important story. And here it is at 2 pm and this story is absolutely minimal. Aren't there reporters that work the news beat at the Globe or boston.com? Why don't we have any interviews from people who were inconvenienced on the way to work? What about a few hotel evacuees? By almost 2 pm on a story that broke pre-dawn, it's a sad statement that a key local story of the day isn't really updated on the website.

I was surprised by the earlier reports that mentioned the traffic problems but seemed to forget that there are people who live in the Back Bay, South End, and Bay Village who were affected as well. It is very tough to get ready for work with no lights, heat, or hot water.

Does the RMV have a disaster recovery data center? If they do have one, why didn't they transition to the disaster recovery data center? Is it because it was never tested? Was it because they don't have a disaster recovery data center or business continuity plan? I think they are required to have both. This is the real issue, they are requiried to have something in place to protect and recovery data. Who cares that they had the day off? But how much money did they lose by shutting down and is it more than what a disaster recovery data center would cost?

I did blow a gasket, Ihearu But. I am tired of people always putting down state workers. I am not a registry employee. I am a state worker at another agency. The "joke" as you call it, has gotten old. I am tired of hearing "I pay your salary". Oh, really....well, then I contribute to my own salary, along with paying for police officers and firemen to protect everyone else and not just my family. I pay my taxes that go to public schools and I don't have children in public school. I don't get "free" services of any kind from the state helping me in any way. So everyone, enough!! All state workers are characterized by some bad apples (and I agree, there are some) but most are hardworking people. If you get someone with Eggman's attitude coming in, your smile can only go so far.

Hoe did a huge man hole fire end up being an IT bashing thread?
You IT professionals who ask why there is no DR/COOP site, check with your State reps who fight over where to put it and then cut any funding to create one.
Any idea how the state agencies are organized and work? The RMV is not part of the MASS PIKE Authority.
"Nice to know the Registry has no off-site backup capacity for all our records and private information to protect them against hackers"
How does this come about from branch closures?
Where is the Doctors appointment bashing? Oh yeah, you don;t know how that works either..

Uhm, "common sense" should include someone with an expiring license NOT waiting until the last minute, and renewing their driver's license sometime before the day it actually expired. You know, just in case there were some kind of emergency or problem.

"Common Sense" works both ways. Or at least, it should.

Maybe you shouldn't have waited for the last day before you had to renew... isn't that common sense?

How much money was lost because the RMV was shut down? how much did the hospital lose because they had to cancel patient appointments? How much did the patients lose because they couldn't get treatment? Several people were impacted and several thousands dollars lost because businesses didn't have an adequate plan or they were to lazy to implement "work around procedures". Do not need a big IT budget to put work arounds in place, just a brain.

These posts are hilarious, thanks for giving me something to read today

Sure, briana, makes sense when you think about it to consider the lost revenue but when you take it to managers who have budget authority they tend to think about how much it'll cost because if it doesn't happen it's just a cost to have "work arounds". It's usually the high level managers who cross their fingers and hope they don't need the insurance. You can be sure the hospitals have good procedures in place for preserving life but beyond that it becomes a business deal.

Briana,
You've already heard from more than one person as to why the RMV doesn't have a Disaster Recovery center; well, now you'll have my comments as well. I work for a private company that has such a center, and it costs our company a bundle! We need it, though, because if our systems go down, literally hundreds of billions of dollars in financial trades could be affected. In a world where essential state budget needs go unmet for lack of funds, the last thing that we need is to have a dedicated computer maintained just in case the RMV computers go down -- something which hasn't happened within the last five years. The registry officesd are understaffed, so tell me -- is it better to spend millions on a computer which might never be used, or on rregistry staff who can cut dow\n on wait times and get people in and out more quickly?

Well, I don't know that I would say that the Courtyard Marriott guests were "briefly" evacuated. The alarm sounded at about 5:30 a.m. with a voice over the loudspeaker saying, "Everybody evacuate the building."

My wife and I wound up in the streets in our PJs after going down the stair wells in the dark. Fortunately, we had a car parked in the garage across the street where we sat to stay warm.

But people were never permitted back into their rooms. We had to climb back up the 9th floor to retrieve our belongings and were then shown the door--end of stay.

True, I nearly evacuated briefly when the alarm initially sounded, but that's not important right now.

I'm suprised at all the negative comments...makes me think there are lots of spoiled brats out there! It sounds like NSTAR did a great job getting everything up & running and back to normal as quickly as they did. I think if people were appreciated a bit more for the services they do provide, we would all be better for it.