Posted on April 11th, 2008

duluth-blizzard

What is projected to be a massive 3-day spring blizzard is now affecting Internet access and power to the City of Duluth, Minnesota (AIMCLEAR‘s home). At least one large regional ISP has been taken down by the outage which is city and region-wide.

Over 10,000 electric customers and thousands of Internet users (including websites) are without service at this time. Weather conditions are so serious that one ISP, with over 20,000 customers, was down for over an hour in the pre-dawn light whilst crews hacked accumulated ice from an outdoor generator enclosure for proper exhausting.

The blizzard continues to rage with wind gusts of 50-55 MPH, restricted visibility down to a 1/8 mile and violent thunderstorm cells moving through the area. Lightning is flashing outside intermittently. At this writing city plows have been pulled from the road due to extreme conditions. There is no power or Internet to my home and we have personal Internet access only because Sprint is still providing EVDO service at this time. At least one television station has been knocked off the air.

AIMCLEAR will keep clients informed to the extent that my laptop batteries and then Blackberry will sustain communication. Clients expecting to meet with me in Minneapolis today: I will not be making the trip until the roads are passable and power/Internet is restored here.

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  • Aaron Weiche

    Hunker down Marty. This is why we love MN right? I don’t know how you guys do it up in Duluth with all the lake effect bonuses you get. 🙂

    Good luck and congrats on your 1 year of blogging.

  • Chris Dohman

    ahhhh……. the fun of a minnesota spring snow storm. 🙂 storm gone down here in st paul, just a bunch of slop now. we do need the moisture though, just wish it was cold enough to be dryer snow or warm enough to be rain. hope you are back up soon marty!

  • Marty Weintraub

    Thanks you guys…it’s truly crazy here. I was thinking this mornig how minor this is compared to Katrina and other more serious disasters…and feeling.very grateful.

    That said, in times like these we’re glad for the ability to comment in blogs using a smart phone!

  • Marty Weintraub

    OK, power is back on to the house and office. The server farm is up. Now I’m going to shovel my jeep out and head to the office to put things back together!

  • michael streko

    please go out side and make a snow angel for me.

    😉

  • Marty Weintraub

    @Michael: Oh, OK, …right away sir… 🙂

  • Marty Weintraub

    Power was on when I 4-wheeled to the office…parked in a 3 foot drift amongst downed trees…power flickered and went out again WHILE rebooting office servers…Power back out in City…disconnecting whole office…streets look like the moon..power back out @ home..need to charge Blackberry in the car…