Heavy rain in the San Francisco Bay Area was blamed for a total loss of Net access for some Silicon Valley companies Tuesday.
Regional business customers of Internet service provider UUNet lost all access to the Net when UUNet's regional network hub lost power. UUNet spokeswoman Megan Lamb said heavy rain was to blame for the outage, which lasted two hours, starting at 7 a.m. PST.
The company has its own backup power supply, but that supply may have run out, causing network operations to shut down. Lamb said the company was still investigating details of the outage.
Any customer served by the Palo Alto hub lost all Internet access, Lamb said. She didn't know how many customers were affected, or in how large a geographical area. The service is for businesses and other ISPs only.
The Palo Alto hub is one of several that UUNet operates in the Silicon Valley region, Lamb said. Service was fully restored following the outage.
The San Francisco Examiner reported that thousands of Bay Area customers of Pacific Gas & Electric, the region's power utility, lost power Tuesday due to a powerful Pacific storm that struck the region overnight and early Tuesday morning. An average of 2 to 2.5 inches of rain fell in the area, the paper said. Some of the most damaging effects were on the San Francisco peninsula where Palo Alto is located, the paper reported.
