Hurricane Frances’s impending arrival in southeastern Florida may well have provoked a number of adult Internet companies to pack up and bail for safe ground until the lady spends her fury – especially under a mandatory evacuation order that was handed down for the area at about 2 p.m. EDT September 2.
Attempts to reach Net Management Services, the parent of affiliate programs TrafficCashGold and LoveDollars, and Cyberservices, the parent of SexMoney.com, proved unsuccessful. No operators were available to take a call from AVNOnline.com as of 11:45 a.m. EDT. September 3.
SEGuru told AVNOnline.com by way of instant messaging that he and his wife made way to friends west of Fort Lauderdale. Internet Billing (iBill), located in Deerfield Beach, also had no one answering the switchboard when contacted by AVNOnline.com, and the company has posted on several Webmaster message boards that they have, indeed, closed their offices during the hurricane threat, though all their automated systems are still running, including transaction processing, merchant information, direct integration, and B2B.
“In the event of a power failure, transaction processing will continue as our entire data center is backed up with an onsite high capacity diesel generator. It is important to note that we may experience network outages if Internet Service Providers and Telephone facilities are affected,” the company advisory said. “In the event that we experience a network outage or lose local continuity, we utilize an out of state data center as a secondary hot site for transaction processing and data backup.”
LifeStyle Magazine, located in Clearwater, was still in their offices Friday morning. “It’s supposed to go north of us,” said an unidentified staffer, “so we’re not going to lose.” The staffer said the magazine isn’t going to move just yet, but they’re keeping a close enough eye on Frances, which is said to have weakened somewhat as of Friday morning.
Pride Studios, a gay adult entertainment company whose operations include affiliate Webmaster program PrideBucks, was also unavailable to comment. Located in Miami Beach, they, too, were likely under the mandatory evacuation that affected an estimated 2.3 million southern Floridians.
Frances was reported to have weakened into a strong Category 3 storm by Frida morning, with the top sustained winds at late morning reported at 115 mph, down five from earlier in the morning and down 40 from Thursday. On the other hand, numerous weather service reports indicate forecasters are not ruling out a potential to re-strengthen before the storm hits the southeastern Florida land mass – including a potential to push waves as high as ten feet and 10-20 inches of rain on that part of the state.
“I hope people don’t take comfort in the fact that Frances weakened,” said Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. “The storm is very unpredictable. We still don’t know exactly where landfall will be.”
Staffers at virtual chat program Full Spectrum in Clearwater, near Tampa, were reported in meetings all morning long Friday, with one telling AVNOnline.com they were too far north to be affected themselves by Frances. But this staffer also said there was likely to be an impact on business because of Frances, with some of their business partners having to evacuate. “I hope not too heavily,” the staffer said.
She said their area was bracing for flood potential as a result of rain in the region likely to be stirred by Frances but didn’t expect any other effects from the storm which is well enough south of their area.
Frances was reported over the Bahamas at 11 a.m. EDT, about 220 miles east-southeast of West Palm Beach and moving west-northwest at 9 mph, with hurricane-force wind reaching about 85 miles from its center. The airports in Fort Lauderdale and Miami were all but closed, with airport officials at both urging stranded travelers to find shelters and helping transport them there.
“We’re all buttoned up,” said SEGuru. “Everybody remembers Hurricane Andrew, so no one’s taking any chances.”
