Hurricane Sandy is Taking Websites Down as Predicted

As we predicted the other day, Hurricane Sandy has taken down a number of websites. Some of the sites are doing their job and are keeping consumers updated. Others, however, are not. Needless to say, it seems that not everyone has implemented a backup plan to get things up and running quickly and we have a feeling that some website owners may not even realize their sites are down. Obviously, if they don’t know their site is down they aren’t Alertra clients. So just who has Hurricane Sandy affected?

Sandy Isn’t Taking Names, But We Are

While we don’t know each and every single site outage that has occurred due to Hurricane Sandy, we do know of at least a few sites that have been knocked out due to the storm – at least temporarily. Teach for America is just one of them, notifying visitors via Twitter stating, “Our website and online application are temporarily down due to #Sandy. Thanks for your patience as we try to resolve ASAP.”

Star Talk Radio is another Hurricane Sandy victim, tweeting “Thanks to Sandy, the StarTalk Radio website will be down for a bit. We hope you stay safe. When you look up, watch out for falling branches.” Again, this is another example of a site communicating their outage properly with their audience.

Power outages, however, are not the only reason for the website downtime that is being experienced by many sites. As Mobile Photo Group tweeted, “Our website is down due to an unprecedented demand for a curated real time stream of @instagram images of hurricane #sandy. Techs on it now.”

There is no doubt about it – Hurricane Sandy is definitely making a mark on the world of the Internet.

Is Your Site Down?

If your site is down and you’re an Alertra customer, you know about it. If it’s not down, you will know about it if it happens. Make sure you follow the lead of the sites mentioned above and tweet about it on Twitter and update your Facebook page. If you don’t already have accounts with those sites, go make them – NOW. Remember, communication is everything and while you can’t control Mother Nature you can indeed control the damage she does to the reputation of your website by explaining the reasons behind any downtime your site may experience.