The National Time Warner Outage Shows How Much We Depend On The Internet

This morning's Time Warner internet outage hit just as The Q Morning Show was getting started. One by one each of us noticed that our computers couldn't connect and frustration began to set in.

We had been having problems with our network in the building for a couple of days, so we woke up our engineer once again to tell him the internet was down. I really feel sorry for this guy and wonder if he ever gets any sleep.

He said this time though it wasn't us and Time Warner was out. I turned to Twitter on my phone and saw Jackie Ward tweeting that WCSH was out, and then our radio stations in Augusta and Bangor. From the Tweets I saw about the Time Warner outage, it became clear this was a big deal and it may not be back for a while. Now the question for us was how do we do our show without the internet?

Meredith, Lori and I have all been in radio long enough to know what it was like to do a show before the internet. With it gone, we suddenly had to find other ways of doing things. Something as simple as finding the temperature in other towns and cities in Maine wasn't right at our fingertips.

We were very lucky that we had most everything we needed for the show. Lori had news already written and printed, Meredith had already gotten her Showbiz Buzz, we had already received the mp3 that Charlie Lopresti at CBS 13 sends us with his weather forecast.

When you think of all the things we use the Internet for today it surprises me that it's still not considered a utility. We're almost to the point that it's essential for day to day operations like water and electricity. I would say that it's even more essential than phone service.

What was your reaction when you found out your internet was down this morning? Share it with us in the comments below or on our Facebook and Twitter pages.