This is so weird I can hardly believe it, maybe some details were lost in the writing.
Were they connecting everything directly to the grid? Even the most basic electrical setup goes through a fusebox with switches that turn everything on/off.
Perhaps that box was burning as well, or the fire blocked access to it, idk. If there truly was no way to cut power from the site then, wow, that was just an abysmally stupid decision.
>Aucun organe de coupure externe
Meaning there was no way to cut external power from going into the the DC. But the DC also had
>4 niveaux de reprise automatique de courant [very roughly translates to "4 layers of automatic power restart"]
Which I guess kept switching the power back on. So the only way to completely shut down power was by cutting off the building from the grid... with a switch that didn't exist. I don't know anything about data centers but that does not make a lot of sense to me, why would you want your safety systems to cycle back off automatically?
The report also states that the lack of main switch was due to "economic decisions made by the company", but does not give further details about that multi layered restart system
My understanding of this is possibly that "externe" here means external as in external to the building.
Presumably, there was a breaker - it was just in the same room as the fire.
Though never in France and everything I've spent time in was a a retail or wholesale provider, eg selling space to other companies. Not something owned and operated by a single company.
What they wanted is a switch outside the building, that could cut power to the whole building without having to get to the electrical room.
Every commercial building in the US I've seen has a big huge switch outside (temptation to throw it has been moderate sometimes).
The point about UPS continuing to provider power even after the utility is cut is critical, though.