Just when you thought heat was the only weather problem ...
If you lost service to Pinterest, Netflix or Instagram over the weekend, you can blame a big thunderstorm that hit the Washington, D.C., area Friday night, according to media reports.
Did you suffer loss of these key Internet services Friday? Tell us in the comments below.
The three companies suffered major interruptions to their Web services after the huge storm knocked the power from an Amazon data center that the sites rely on. And in true emergency fashion, the companies took to social networks to explain to users what was causing the outage.
The problems reportedly lasted six hours, the Los Angeles Times reported. All three services were working by Saturday afternoon.
Pinterest, a hot social network that has 2.1 million Facebook followers, "is back after a server outage related to storms on the east coast," according to its Facebook posting Saturday. "Our team is continuing to work on some remaining issues that may impact performance. Thanks again for your patience!"
The storm caused power outages in and around the Washington, D.C., area, knocking out electricity for more than 1 million people. Those services may not see it restored for several days, according to the Huffington Post.
The storm was a "derecho," a widespread system that lasts a long time and tends to move in a straight line. Derechos can produce the same kind of heavy damage as tornadoes, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
This was the second outage at the same Amazon region in the last month.
Amazon's services were not supposed to fail completely, the Times reported. Amazon's customers are told that if data centers suffer outages, they will be rolled over to other data centers and continue functioning, but obviously that didn't happen Friday night.
