How Peer1's Customers Saved The Day

When disaster strikes, most companies like to keep things quiet and hide problems from customers because they fear customers may take their business elsewhere. This wasn't the case with Peer1 Hosting. When Hurricane Sandy left behind an abundance of water, the basement of the building where Peer1's data center was flooded and things got even trickier but that's when Peer1 and its customers did the unthinkable to keep things running:

[Early Tuesday, Peer1's Broad Street customers were warned that fuel supplies would soon be exhausted. Among those who got the email was Anthony Casalena, the founder and CEO of Squarespace, a Web publishing and content management firm. He was in his powerless apartment in downtown Manhattan....

...The data center manager suggested trying to get fuel supplies to the roof. They made arrangements with one of the fuel trucks on the street for supply. Fuel trucks have become a common sight since the power outage.

Casalena was among those helping to carry fuel to the roof.

The generator-fueling effort got organized. More people begin showing up from Squarespace and another large user, Fog Creek Software. They included software developers, systems engineers, sales representatives, executives and support personnel.

A network of people, stationed at every staircase landing, formed a bucket brigade passing fuel from one person to the next. Several dozen may have been involved over multiple shifts, including some day laborers who were also hired to help.

"Over the next night into the morning, we were able to successfully continue to coordinate fuel trucks coming and manually move hundreds of gallons of diesel to the roof and keep the thing online," Casalena said.] source: computerworld

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