NEW ORLEANS — A fire broke out on the third floor of City Hall in New Orleans, damaging the city's data center and bringing down all city websites.
The fire started late Tuesday morning in the data center on the third floor.
Firefighters were able to quickly put out the fire, but they had to go in and clear the walls to make sure smoke did not spread, city officials said.
Officials said firefighters were letting them back onto the 9th floor to continue their Emergency Operations meeting but said the status of the data on the third floor is unknown at this time.
"Hopefully it's not super compromised as far as our communications I know there were some problems but hopefully they can be rectified," one member of the city's emergency team told WWL-TV's David Hammer.
Officials said at the moment there appears to be an issue with people inside City Hall getting through to the EOC call. Officials are working quickly to resolve this issue.
The fire appears to have brought down all city websites, including the main nola.gov page and ready.nola.gov, which is where the city posts emergency updates.
Officials plan to communicate with residents via text messages because that service has not been interrupted. To sign up for those alerts, text NOLAREADY to 77295.