Tracking Hurricane Florence
The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) upgraded Hurricane Florence to “Category 4” on Monday September 10. As of 2pm Eastern Time on Tuesday September 11, Florence was centered approximately 370 miles south-southwest of Bermuda, and 845 miles east-southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina. The storm is moving west-northwest at about 17 miles per hour, and is packing maximum sustained winds of around 130 miles per hour.
Through Saturday September 15, Florence is expected to produce 15-20 inches of rainfall, with accumulations of up to 30 inches near Florence’s track over portions of North Carolina, Virginia, and northern South Carolina through Saturday. THIS MASSIVE RAINFALL MAY LEAD TO LIFE-THREATENING FLASH FLOODING. Many businesses and schools have already made plans to close. Updated information is available at: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/.
What We are Doing
We expect Florence to hit the Greensboro, NC area sometime between 8am and noon Eastern Time on Thursday September 13. We are hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst as follows:
- We will have limited staff available during normal business hours and until 9pm Thursday September 13 and Friday September 14.
- We currently plan on having our Support Engineers available on Saturday September 15 and Sunday September 16 from 9am until noon (both days), to assist you in routing calls or making changes to your auto attendants.
- If you cannot immediately contact our Support Engineers by phone, then we ask you to email your request to [email protected].
Business Continuity
At DigitalPhone.io, we have three geo-redundant locations. Each of these is within fortified data centers, and have both battery and generator backups. We believe that only one of our geo-redundant locations in Research Triangle Park, NC, may be at risk. Since we have a fully redundant switch configuration, as required calls will be handled in a geo-redundant mode in the event a data center experiences a power outage or loss of internet connectivity.
Please also be aware that during past weather-related events, cellular towers also experienced outages and higher call volumes than they were able to handle.
Take Action Now
Please DO NOT wait until the last minute to request changes to your auto attendant greetings, or advise us on how you want calls handled in the event that your offices experience damage or lose power/internet access. We ask that you call our support line TODAY at 336-544-4000. Your co-operation is greatly appreciated!
