Power outage when coupled with flooding can be a nightmare for always-on businesses. Same was the case for telecommunication service providers and data centers hosted in New York and neighborhood, which went down (and are still down) as backup generators are flooded with not much options to get them back online.
Verizon Communication, which serves many of states that came in Sandy’s path, was worst hit with at least 25 percent cell sites down due to power outages or physical damages.
Many call centers including 911 were reportedly hit by the situation.
Authorities say that storm hasn’t ended yet, since it was moving out very slowly, and disruption could get worse before getting any better. Telcos fear that their back-up power resources could dry down to cause more disruption in wire line and wireless communication services.
Estimated time for resolution for commercial electricity isn’t issued while saying that restoration could take days.
Almost every data-centers is hit either due to power outage or the communication lines. Countless Internet websites are experiencing down-times, most prominent of which are www.gawker.com and www.huffingtonpost.com.
Telecom companies said that they are still to accurately asses the amount of damage caused. An early assessment of total destruction by Sandy was valued around USD 30 Billion.
