Hurricane Milton's Impact: 70 Florida Cities See 50%+ Drop in Internet Traffic

https://twitter.com/CloudflareRadar/status/1844444286911381980

by emot • 2 years ago

91 43 2 years ago

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1970-01-01• 2 years ago

There are several DCs in the Tampa area. How are they? https://www.datacentermap.com/usa/florida/tampa/

teqsun• 2 years ago

Aren't datacenters usually pretty hardened buildings? I would think they're okay but disconnected.

hotspot_one• 2 years ago

need to get the electricity from somewhere. Need to feed the people who work there.

phil21• 2 years ago

Honestly not really. Some of the older facilities took great care on site selection and some hardened building features, but modern sites are more based on power grid availability and are simply standard amazon distribution warehouse style buildings.

The redundancy is in having your data and infrastructure in multiple buildings and geographic locations.

This is due to a myriad of reasons but they all boil down to cost and practicality. The scale of modern facilities typically eclipses anything built 20 years ago by a huge margin which further limits site selection.

The days of AT&T long lines are long gone. Simply driving a standard SUV through the right wall or two in most facilities would be enough to cripple them for a long while, much less flooding or a direct hit by hurricane force winds.

Of course there are exceptions.

rconti• 2 years ago

Wow. I didn't expect to see so many so close to the water. They might be in high-rises though.

dylan6042• 2 years ago

You could be in the basement of a high-rise though, so that's not quite as helpful. My dad was in commercial construction, and I got to visit several sites. One in particular had a basement with concrete islands dotting the floor. They were support for the computer racks to be raised so if the sprinklers were to open the racks would be above the flooding water. They however would not protect from 12'-15' storm surges

motrm2• 2 years ago

I really wanted to reply here with a link to something I recall reading from back when Katrina happened, but I can't find it.

If I remember correctly it was someone called Usurper or The Usurper and they chronicled their journey at the time looking after a DC during Katrina. It may not have been a whole DC, possibly it was a business and their (smaller set of) servers, but my memory fails me.

Unfortunately I can't remember what medium it was written on - a blog of some sort? Heck, it could even have been on the Something Awful forums given the year.

I remember stories of struggling to find fresh sources of gas for the generator and all the fun involved in getting it from A to B.

Anyone else remember that? I'd love to have another read of it now, and I think some of you might too. It'll offer a bit of insight of what's to come this year too.

juliansimioni2• 2 years ago

Yes, that was the interdictor blog!

https://interdictor.livejournal.com/2005/08/27/

gottorf• 2 years ago

I used to be a customer of Hivelocity with dedicated servers in their Tampa facilities. Top notch operation, never had an issue. Supposedly they remained unscathed through Milton: https://www.hivelocity.net/blog/hurricane-milton-service-not...

staplung• 2 years ago

It's tempting to interpret this as a proxy for over-all damage but it's perhaps a bit unwise to do so. Alternative possibilities are that internet related infra (power lines, cell towers, roof-mounted dishes, etc.) was disproportionally damaged or that cities in the projected path saw a lot of evacuations. Of course all of these things could be true at the same time. It's an interesting way to try to assess damage in any case because it's automagically collected; you don't need to wait for people on the ground to report damage. So here's hoping that a) those affected can get back on their feet quickly and b) there's some follow-up to see how useful this data was as a proxy for assitance needs.

mlyle3• 2 years ago

There's probably better figures. Internet providers themselves probably know what subscribers dropped at what times, so you'd be able to distinguish from evacuations and have a good signal as to whether it happened from power outages or key pieces of their infrastructure failing.

It would be really neat to figure out the cooperation necessary to effectively use it. Rapid damage assessment has a ton of value even if the data is somewhat unreliable.

dotancohen3• 2 years ago

Evacuations are, unfortunately, often accompanied by tweets. As early as 2012 or 2014 a team I was on was able to localize the epicenter of an earthquake by examining the Twitter fire hose, half an hour before the earthquake was announced on any of the major news networks.

ineedaj0b• 2 years ago

we try not to use our phones - if the power goes out, you can't charge again for how long? You never know.

another problem are power flickers. a short flicker resets modems and routers. so you read a book or talk rather than waste battery

dotancohen3• 2 years ago

  > so you read a book or talk rather than waste battery

OK, I'm convinced. Next hurricane I'm traveling to Florida with the kids!

linotype2• 2 years ago

There are pretty much constantly deals for battery backups from companies like Jackery and Bluetti that can run modems and routers for many hours for under $300.

Retric• 2 years ago

One of my go to power outage devices is a cheap car jump starter with USB charging. 50$ and you can run a cellphone with wireless hotspot and a tablet for days and it’s far less of a hassle than jumper cables.

Actually having solar or a generator is definitely a good idea for homes, but apartments also lose power.

InvaderFizz• 2 years ago

I spend most of my time in the path of hurricanes, we lose power 5-10x per year for between 1 to 8 hrs on average.

When we lose power the battery backup for the modem takes over(15hrs runtime), and we have other portable batteries to recharge our phones multiple times.

If things get really bad, we can pull out the camping solar panels and keep the phones charged. At that point, I expect the fiber will be down anyways and cell service is probably all that would be available.

Works quite well. I can usually still complete my work day on my laptop without issue.

wonger_• 2 years ago

and many are busy prepping, checking in with loved ones, checking weather updates, and then cleaning up, which means less time doing normal Internet things

HumblyTossed• 2 years ago

As a Floridian, post-hurricane is a really good time to de-electronics yourself. Just get outside and clean up, chat with the neighbors, fire up the grill and cook stuff that is about to go bad in the fridge and share.

* That being said, we installed a whole house gen a couple years ago, so that's been nice to keep the a/c on and the fridge stuff safe.

dotancohen3• 2 years ago

Many science fiction works begin with the premise "we've lost contact with the colony". It's a clear signal that something is amiss.

LV426

lysace2• 2 years ago

Almost on topic: I have this vague memory of some very interesting blog posts of a datacenter sysadmin who bravely dealt with hurricane Katrina and the aftermath, in 2005.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

rookie• 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdictor_(blog)

lysace2• 2 years ago

Yes! Thanks. (Unfortunately the wayback machine is down...)

Nevermind: The actual livejournal posts are still up.

Start here: https://interdictor.livejournal.com/2005/08/27/

Then just move forward day by day. (next day link in the lower right corner)

AlchemistCamp3• 2 years ago

Starlink has been providing emergency internet service in the affected areas: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41803857

karlzt• 2 years ago

There's nothing on that link.

AlchemistCamp3• 2 years ago

It’s to a WSJ article, but apparently users flagged it.

tomjakubowski• 2 years ago

That article is about areas affected by Helene, not Milton

AlchemistCamp3• 2 years ago

Based on what people are posting, it appears Starlink's emergency services are continuing with Milton: https://x.com/search?q=starlink%20milton&src=typed_query

worstspotgain• 2 years ago

Any non-Xitter link? Also, how much of this is less TikTok and similar?

dmitrygr• 2 years ago

Wouldn't you expect this even if there was no actual damage since so may people evacuated, as they were told?

joecool1029• 2 years ago

https://nitter.poast.org/CloudflareRadar/status/184444428691... (not X-walled link to thread)

emot• 2 years ago

An update with today's numbers and Starlink growth in Florida as well: https://x.com/CloudflareRadar/status/1844764342668976159

eth0up• 2 years ago

I spent at least an hour in the eye of Milton. At one point, you could hear a leaf drop and the sky was strangely bright in all directions, though power was long gone.

This was a 1:1000 miracle and could have annihilated the entire area. Had it not effectively shat itself before climbing on land, I suspect I'd be toast. Still a lot of tree and tree induced damage, but minimal major structural damages. We're forecast to be without power until the 17th and fuel lines exceed a mile, guarded by police.

Not great, but beats the hell out of what was mysteriously avoided - the bastard was over 180mph at its prime and spawned more tornadoes than ever in history.

Such 'luck' cannot persevere indefinitely.

If interested, please see my Ask HN post regarding Google's behavior during this ordeal: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41818861#41819099

Edit: Verizon cellular carried us through most of the storm, becoming inaccessible for most of the proceeding day. It has since resumed with respectable consistency.

Hurricane Milton's Impact: 70 Florida Cities See 50%+ Drop in Internet Traffic

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