New York Data Centers Battle Floods, Utility Outages

miller60 writes "At least three data center buildings in lower Manhattan are struggling with power problems amid widespread flooding and utility outages caused by Hurricane Sandy. Flooded basements at two sites took out diesel fuel pumps, leaving them unable to refuel generators on higher levels. One of these was Datagram, which knocked out Buzzfeed and the Gawker network of sites. At 111 8th Avenue, some tenants lost power when Equinix briefly experienced generator problems." The NY Times has a running list of Sandy-related problems, including 5,700 more flight cancellations, 6 million people without power, rising water levels at a nuclear plant, official disaster declarations from President Obama, and a death toll of 38. On the upside, and despite the high water levels, the Nuclear Energy Institute was quick to point out that all 34 nuclear facilities in Sandy's path made it through without problems.

Comments

Look at the bright side

[AuMatar]

If we're really lucky, it'll take out all the high frequency traders systems for a few days and we can have an actual market without parasites.

Nah, who am I kidding. If that actually happened they'd keep Wall Street closed.

Where are the mid-American datacenters

[blueforce]

Why aren't there more datacenters in Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, etc.? Surely the threat from Tornados could be mitigated and the electrical infrastructure built out more cheaply than the losses due to coastal disasters, no?