Significant data lost as Town Hall server crashes

KENT — A digital disaster occurred at Town Hall on Monday, Dec. 20. The server that links 17 computers belonging to various town departments apparently failed because of a bad battery.

Mark Wither of Lightning P.C., Inc., who has been in charge of Kent’s information technology for about 20 years, said that much of the town’s data, software and computerized records was lost.

Wither was informed at 3:30 p.m. on that day that an alarm in the room containing the server had been going off since that morning.

In a letter to First Selectman Bruce Adams written after the event, Wither speculated that the alarm was going off due to power fluctuations caused by a “no good� battery.

Wither remotely logged into the server and found that its hard drive array had degraded, causing a drive to fail.

“There were various degrees of loss within the building,� Adams reported to the Board of Selectmen, after reading Wither’s letter aloud at a special meeting Jan. 5.

Town employees who have been affected by the loss of data then reported on the status of their recovery efforts.

Tax Assessor Patricia Braislin said that she would be back to normal very quickly, as she conducted periodic backups of information onto CDs which she keeps at her home.

Tax Collector Deborah Devaux said she had lost tax records from July 1, 2010, until the present. She is now working to reenter the data from the hard copies the office keeps, including records on tax payments.

“We’ll have everything just the way it was here,� Devaux said.

Adams claimed that his biggest loss was his collection of e-mail addresses. He is now backing it up in three different ways.

Lesly Ferris, the director of the Kent Park and Recreation Commission, did not lose any of her e-mail addresses, but did lose many of the actual e-mails that she has sent and received.

Land Use Clerk Donna Hayes said she had lost all of her e-mails, as well as the ability to get to any files from the period between May 2010 and the present.

“Everything is encrypted and not recognized,� she said.

Town Clerk Darlene Brady seemed to have suffered the biggest loss in the disaster. At the selectmen’s meeting, she read aloud a statement she had previously prepared.

“The amount of data my office has lost has severely impacted my ability to meet the statutory obligations of my position in a timely manner and has affected the level of service I am able to provide to my customers,� she read.

All of Brady’s data, including e-mails, Microsoft Word files, Microsoft Excel files, and information regarding births, deaths, marriages and dog licensing has been lost, along with the software she needed to keep track of this data on her computer. She does, however, still have hard copies of these records.

“Basically what I have downstairs is an empty computer,� Brady said at the meeting.

Brady made a request at the meeting for approval of up to $4,000 for the purchase of new software programs to help her keep her data organized. This request, however, will be addressed at a future meeting.

Brady also expressed a desire to have the technology failure investigated and said the town should seek other providers of technology services.

Other attendees of the meeting offered suggestions for protecting the town’s system, such as backing up the town’s data “in the cloud,� meaning storing data on the Internet rather than on a local server.

Some urged the Board of Selectmen to consider the possible legal implications of the loss of data, including potential Freedom of Information inquiries.

Despite the turmoil, Adams remained calm.

“We are not going to jump and make rash decisions,� he said.