Originally posted on Data Center POST
On Tuesday, August 4, 2020, Tropical Storm Isaias entered the Northeast and the Carolinas as a grade 1 system and was quickly downgraded to a tropical storm as it travelled north. The rainfall and high winds were not predicted to be catastrophic, however, local alerts and forecasters provided sound guidance to residents in its path. By morning on Tuesday, Isaias struck New Jersey and New York with fierce winds that tumbled trees, blew debris and toppled electricity poles. By mid-day on Tuesday, Isaias knocked out power for more than 2 million customers across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Days later, hundreds of thousands of people were still in the dark, with the remaining outages expected to be resolved a full week after its wrath.
When power goes out for such a large number of people, it affects not just lights, refrigeration and air conditioning, but also access to television, cable TV and oftentimes ancillary utilities such as mobile phone towers and more. With a keen eye on Internet traffic, DE-CIX learned through its observations from the COVID-19 pandemic that the Internet’s resilience is quite strong. As countries began their lockdowns, Internet users increased across its global platform, with peak traffic use mimicking the shutdown every step of the way.
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