Murphy has been working overtime in St. Louis. A combination of several sever thunderstorms and grid problems with AmerenUE, the local electric power company, flash floods due to rain, and even a major water main break in the business district; and ISP's are testing all parts of their backup plans. At least four different St. Louis ISPs had problems at some time in the last 24 hours for a variety of different reasons. UPS failure, generator failure, flooding, and electrician error while doing preventive maintenance. http://www.stlnet.com/postnet/pnhelp.nsf/ByDocID/F7F43108C9DD71408625678D007... Postnet is located at 900 Walnut in St. Louis which is the main CLEC/carrier hotel facility in downtown St. Louis. Other outages also occurred at a university in mid-St. Louis county, and at ISPs in west county. Some ISPs survived one wave of thunderstorms, only to succumb to a later wave. And my personal experience, a direct lightning strike on a tree next to my bedroom window. Anyone want to buy some used surge protectors? Only used once :-) -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation