Power outage wipes out major websites

Thousands of blogs -- myself included -- were unable to update for a good part of the day yesterday because several major websites based out of San Francisco shut down after a serious power outage. Among them are Sixapart (which runs Typepad and LiveJournal), Technorati, Craigslist and Netfilx. All these companies pay big bucks to their data center 365 Main for generator backups so that their sites never experience something like this. Oops, looks like 365 Main really dropped the ball. (There is a theory floating around that a drunk and/or disgruntled employee destroyed the system because after all, the company promised they have backups so this doesn't happen.)

A statement from 365 Main states they are still investigating why the generators didn't kick as soon as the power went off. (What is interesting is that the company has deleted all press releases about how great their service is and how it provides continuous power to its customers.) There's buzz in the blogosphere that they never really tested their generators, but I am doubtful that they would go untested. But something isn't right. I wonder what 365 Main will do to make this up to their clients -- clients who might just switch to another provider, such as Terremark Worldwide in Miami. If anyone knows how important generator backups are, it's a South Florida company.