US web sites affected by a massive storm along the US east coast are today struggling to deliver news feeds.
Among those affected are Gizmodo, Lifehacker and BuzzFeed, along with all Gawker Media sites. Also down are sites such as the Huffington Post,
Many organisations tweeted that the culprit was a battery failure caused by flooding in a data centre.
The Huffington Post published updates on a special page, as well as on its Twitter and Facebook feeds, Gawker Media published a warning that their sites were affected by a loss of power.
Gawker tweeted: “We’re continuing to work on our servers and will be back online as soon as is possible. We miss you already. Stay dry.”
The BBC reported that the media organisation that has web sites in Australia had previously blamed a crane: “The 57th Street Crane just flooded our servers with sea foam, or something.”
Some content from Buzzfeed was back online via content delivery service Akamai, which has servers around the world.
Data centres forced to switch to the use of back-up generators warned that they might run out power.
Meanwhile a flurry of community-based websites has sprung up, offering advice for those affected by the storm.
Update: According to the SMH, five major newspapers have suspended their site’s paywalls so they can deliver important information to people who aren’t regular subscribers. These include the New York Times, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Newsday and the Wall Street Journal.
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