Those who follow the weather in New Orleans, the location of TurboSquid’s headquarters, will have seen the news about Hurricane Isaac, which is currently passing over the area. We’re not very concerned about flooding (being on the 16th floor has its benefits) but the wind damage has taken out power in a large number of areas. Unfortunately, no power means no Internet. Fortunately, the storm is almost over, and the utility companies are working around the clock to restore power.
New Orleans power map on Wednesday. Red areas are without power.
Because we’re an Internet-based company, many Squids were able to remove themselves to areas outside the hurricane zone ahead of time and continue to keep the wheels of TurboSquid turning from wherever they are. Our Support staff was already spread across the globe, a move we made years ago when we started offering 24/7 Support. Some staff stayed in the city and worked through the storm until the power went out.
What does the power outage mean for our artists and customers? Most of our resources, such as Support, Accounting, and Development, have continued on without much of a change. Most of you won’t notice a thing. The main effect has been on CheckMate inspections. Some of our CheckMate inspectors stayed in the city and are waiting for the power to come back. We have a small backup of inspections which we expect to catch up over the next few days.
Many of you have contacted Support to see how we’re doing, and we thank you for your concern. We’re all okay, TurboSquid is okay, and we expect things to be back to normal by Monday. If you have CheckMate inspections in the queue, we ask for your patience as we catch up and get back to business as usual.