Why you might have trouble getting to certain local websites


View Larger Map

We were helping cover this story via Twitter early this morning – didn’t think it was West Seattle enough for WSB but as more of the effects become obvious, we’re realizing it is: A relatively small fire late last night at Fisher Plaza downtown (4th/Denny, south of the Space Needle) cut power to the building, affecting not only KOMO TV (flagship to Fisher Broadcasting) but also a slew of websites whose hosting companies have servers in the building. We first learned about this indirectly from a West Seattleite whose site was affected – then it was revealed that national sites like geocaching.com and authorize.net (which processes credit cards) were involved too – and now we’ve learned that organizations with West Seattle branches, like PCC and Mars Hill Church, also are without their sites. After several hours of lag, some citywide/national media coverage is FINALLY starting to turn up, but for the best up-to-the-minute news, track Twitter, where many of the companies/organizations that are affected are sharing information – hashtag #fisherfire – direct access to the latest, go here. 1 PM UPDATE: Added this in comments a little while ago since we got the call while out and about, but it needs to be in the main report too: Square 1 Books (WSB sponsor) is also among the companies whose servers were affected by this fire/outage – proprietor Gretchen says they have no e-mail access right now, in addition to their website being down, so call if you need something (935-5764). Some other affected websites (not necessarily WS-linked) are listed here.

11 Replies to "Why you might have trouble getting to certain local websites"

  • mike July 3, 2009 (10:56 am)

    Not the first fire at Fisher datacenters. This one is causing more issues for businesses than the last one though. I have a feeling they’ll be losing a lot of business. The parent company Fisher will take a massive hit in their stock value on this one.

  • Jo July 3, 2009 (11:04 am)

    Is this why TV channel 4’s sound is sooooo low?
    Have to turn it way up to hear.
    Strange!

  • Mike July 3, 2009 (11:52 am)

    All KOMO broadcasting was impacted but they should be on again. Websites are still using the Fisher datacenter are still impacted, including http://www.bing.com/travel who even pointed out exactly where the issue is located. I’m sure the Bing.com people are very excited to see part of the $100,000,000 in ad money to pump up Bing.com fail due to an electrical fire. Also Authorize.net is down who supplies payment services for over 200,000 merchants is down.

  • WSB July 3, 2009 (12:30 pm)

    We are mobile at the moment so easier for me to add this as a comment first – Got a call from Square 1 Books (wsb sponsor) and they also are affected … No web or e-mail, call if you need something.

  • JennySimonds July 3, 2009 (1:14 pm)

    Oh, so that’s why KVI’s been down this AM. Pity.

  • aaron July 3, 2009 (1:33 pm)

    the scanner down i hope they get it fixed by tomarow

  • WSB July 3, 2009 (1:35 pm)

    Of course, that explains it – I tried the online scanner from KOMO’s site this morning while co-publisher P was en route to check out the precinct fire (see earlier report) – nothing there – had to turn on the physical backup, which is more cluttered. Duh. Though I didn’t catch on to the Fisher fire till about 15 mins after that … TR

  • LAP July 3, 2009 (4:49 pm)

    Well that explains why Star 101.5 was off the air this morning and my alarm clock did not come on! Luckily I woke up only 25 minutes late – and was driving in to work anyway because the bus schedule was all messed up!

  • PSPS July 3, 2009 (10:27 pm)

    KOMO AM sent their hosts (including Bill Yend) up to the transmitter site for their time slots!

  • aaron July 4, 2009 (9:07 am)

    the scanner working now

  • WSB July 4, 2009 (9:21 am)

    Thanks. Power was reported to be coming up late last night so here’s hoping everyone is re-connected. We know what it’s like, from some trouble a couple years ago, to have your server be out of commission, and be powerless to do anything about it … quite the helpless, heart-sinking feeling … TR

Sorry, comment time is over.