Two hours without BlueOregon

blueoregon admin

Earlier today, for roughly two hours, BlueOregon disappeared off the net.

Why? BlueOregon is hosted by SixApart's TypePad service, which houses its servers in San Francisco. From SixApart's statement:

Six Apart services are suffering from downtime due to the power outage in San Francisco and the impact it had on our co-location facility. ... We are also investigating why our data center's backup power systems did not respond properly.

More info from the SF Chronicle:

The problem began when breakers in the utility's transmission service opened for an unknown reason, Chiu said. Every time workers attempted to close those breakers to restore service, it caused voltage fluctuations -- high and low flows of electricity through the system -- that impacted PG&E's Martin Substation in Daly City, she said.

That, in turn, caused a transformer to fail in a manhole under 560 Mission St. Witnesses reported hearing a blast shortly before 2 p.m. and then seeing flames licking up through the manhole grate. Chiu said PG&E could not confirm that an explosion had occurred. No one was injured.

So, yeah, flames in a manhole on Mission Street in San Francisco... and BlueOregon goes down (along with several tens of thousand other blogs - plus Technorati and Craigslist.)

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

By blueoregon admin July 24, 2007