Scrap Orchard Site Update: (seriously, this could ONLY happen to ME!)

Of all the nights for our site to go down...this might have been the worst! So here is the update from our Server Host:

From Doug Erwin:
This evening at 4:55pm CDT in our H1 data center, electrical gear shorted, creating an explosion and fire that knocked down three walls surrounding our electrical equipment room. Thankfully, no one was injured. In addition, no customer servers were damaged or lost.

We have just been allowed into the building to physically inspect the damage. Early indications are that the short was in a high-volume wire conduit. We were not allowed to activate our backup generator plan based on instructions from the fire department.

This is a significant outage, impacting approximately 9,000 servers and 7,500 customers. All members of our support team are in, and all vendors who supply us with data center equipment are on site. Our initial assessment, although early, points to being able to have some service restored by mid-afternoon on Sunday. Rest assured we are working around the clock.

We are in the process of communicating with all affected customers. we are planning to post updates every hour via our forum and in our customer portal. Our interactive voice response system is updating customers as well.

There is no impact in any of our other five data centers.

I am sorry that this accident has occurred and I apologize for the impact.


Um... so basically... our server has NO power because of an explosion! LIKE SERIOUSLY??? LOL!! If it weren't such bad timing I MIGHT just laugh!

Kami, Kim, Mel and I are working hard to come up with a plan on how to deal with the SO SUNny Scavenger Hunt, and when to post the announcement for our winners of the Design Contest.

As for the hunt (and the two great kits that are the "prize") we've decided that the hunt will start at Sunshine Studio Scraps tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. EST, and hopefully the Orchard will be back up and running to join them! If not, then we'll host the other half of the scavenger hunt ASAP after our site is back up and working!

As for the announcement of the contest winners, some of us say we should post here to get the news out, others say that might not be fair to those who might not know to check here... SIGH... should I post a POLL? LOL!) But as soon as we can figure this all out I'll let you guys know....

BUT I DO KNOW THIS! WE WILL ABSOLUTELY KEEP THE "SYTYCD" FREEBEE LINKS UP LONGER SO THAT EVERYONE HAS A CHANCE TO DOWNLOAD THEM! Have no fear! I've got your back (wink)!

I'm so sorry that this happened ladies... hang tight! I'll post here when I can!