Battery explodes at Richmond City Hall

A battery exploded in the basement of Richmond City Hall yesterday morning knocking out the city's Web site and interrupting some city services yesterday.

Lt. Shawn Jones of the city fire department said the small explosion was reported at 7:47 a.m.

Jones said the firefighters were met at the scene by city employees and employees of a contractor that was performing work on city information technology equipment. There were no injuries, Jones said.

However, Tammy D. Hawley, press secretary to the mayor, said the Web site went down but is expected to be back up today. She said the city's 311 phone service is working, but employee direct lines also appear to have been affected.

Other services affected yesterday were scheduled utility jobs or inspections. However, she said, there is a number to call to reschedule, 644-3000. The 311 system can still be used for emergency utility services. The 911 emergency communication system was not affected, she said.

Hawley said the system was being moved to a new power source. At one point there is a step where the system goes off the old power source and onto a battery pack, then onto a generator and then to the new uninterruptable power source.

"When it went onto the battery pack, that's where we experienced the problem and the battery pack failed and that's when we had the explosion," Hawley said.

Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or .