Sandy rocks the Bail.
UPDATE 11 pm EST - The Squarespace team is keeping 1.4 million sites online by carrying cans of fuel up 17 flights to the roof to keep their generator operating.
It could happen at any minute. We have been told that Daily Bail and a million other websites will likely go dark sometime this afternoon. Our site platform and hosting provider, Squarespace, was hit hard last night by the floods in NYC.
We have no way of knowing how long the outage will last (I'm guessing LESS than 24 hours), but since no one can shut down the financial insanity, not even a hurricane, we will continue posting links and stories via Twitter. So, if you don't follow us, now would be a good time to start.
Follow Daily Bail on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/TheDailyBail
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Squarespace - Storm Update
GOOD NEWS
http://status.squarespace.com/
Update [6:25pm ET]
We have confirmed that the fuel pump is now working. We can now operate off of fuel indefinitely and there are continuous deliveries scheduled. Additional issues remain, the largest of which being that our generator will need to be taken offline at some point to clean the fuel filter. We can avoid that downtime if Peer1 can provide a street level generator. If this generator failure does occur, we expect the level of downtime to be on the order of an hour, instead of the multi-day outage we were facing at the onset of this crisis. We remain in a difficult situation, but the most difficult challenge we were presented with is now behind us. As of this writing, Squarespace has miraculously avoided all downtime related to Sandy, but we still have many challenges ahead with respect to getting back to anything normal.
Update [4:54pm ET]
A pump has been successfully installed that is carrying fuel to the roof fuel header, and it has been running for an hour. We are awaiting confirmation that the header and our tank are properly connected. The building is going to attempt to power up downed generators for other floors in 30 minutes.
Update [11:16am ET]
Some bad news.
We may not be able to deliver more fuel, as the building is shutdown mode. Last estimate is that we have about 3 hours left. Things change constantly, and we will keep you updated.
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Everyone, I have some unfortunate news to share.
Our primary data center, Peer1, in Lower Manhattan lost power yesterday at about 4:30PM local time. At that time, we smoothly made the transition to generator power and took comfort over the fact that we had enough fuel to last three to four days. (Peer1 stayed online during the last 3 major natural disasters in the area, including a blackout that lasted for days.)
At 8:30PM yesterday, we received reports that the lobby in the data center’s building was beginning to take on water. By 10:30PM, as is sadly the case in most of Lower Manhattan, Peer1’s basement had experienced serious flooding. At 5AM, we learned our data center’s fuel pumps and fuel tanks were completely flooded and unable to deliver any more fuel. At 8AM, they reported that the generators would be able to run for a maximum of four more hours.
http://status.squarespace.com/
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Update [10:38am ET]
Bucket brigade going strong. We’ve gone through half of our morning fuel delivery and are expecting a truck with 5,000 gallons coming at noon. Potential issues are lack of bucket brigade manpower into the night, and our fuel pumps burning out. Peer1 is working to establish a more permanent alternative to fuel delivery. If successful, it may be online this afternoon. Spirits are strong and everyone from Peer1, Fog Creek, and Squarespace is working together. We’ve added some photos below in response to requests.
Midnight Bucket Brigade
If we were there, we would offer a song and a beer.
