While fierce winds and heavy rains from Hurricane Ivan battered the island last weekend, the website was experiencing more than 4.6 million hits per day with people asking questions such as the state of the roads, if particular resorts are still standing (seeing they intend to vacation or get married soon), how to send money home, and just to say thank you.

As the number of online vistors grew, Go-Jamaica server's came close to its maximum limit.

THE DEMAND

"We had to use two additional web servers in order to meet the demand," related Marlene Davis, managing director of Go-Jamaica. The site usually has more than 100 million hits per month. On the weekend, increasing demand forced it to scale back on providing photographs, moving to a 'text only' format to accommodate that demand, Ms. Davis explained.

Throughout the Hurricane, the website allowed Jamaicans, some as far away as Angola, Germany and Japan, to stay abreast of what was happening at home and allowed persons worldwide to listen to and interact with personalities on Power106 FM, the radio station in which The Gleaner has majority interest. Go-Jamaica.com filtered "hundreds upon hundreds" of email messages to Power 106 and letters to The Gleaner before and during the hurricane as Jamaicans across the disapora sought information on relatives and friends at home.

24/7 AUDIO

"At that time, Go-Jamaica was the only website providing its audience with information via 24/7 audio broadcasts, a dynamic photo gallery, Jamaica Gleaner news stories, emails and letters to the world. In effect, it was Jamaica's only interactive conduit to the world throughout the period. As our audience grew we increased the audio streams to three times its capacity, in order to meet that need," Ms. Davis said.

This was one of the busiest periods the website has ever recorded.

"Only the live broadcast and count of the 2002 Jamaica General Elections (http://www.jamaica-elections.com) could rival this period and would run a clear second," she said.

ALL TIMES

Ms. Davis added, "Our priority was to keep our friends and relatives abroad informed at all times on what was occurring at home. That we did then and we will continue to do so now as Jamaica begins to rebuild."

Jamaicans living overseas have been grateful for the website's help during Hurricane Ivan.

"Remarkably, this morning I came across a photo gallery of Ivan's misdeeds to my rock but had to leave it to get ready for work this morning with the intention of exploring later today. I must admit that The Gleaner has really come up trumps in sending news out on this hurricane," remarked Diane Walsh via email from Manchester, England.

THANKS

Krishna Mardens Reynolds from Ontario, Canada, added, "I'd like to take this opportunity to thank The Gleaner Company for the wonderful work they have done in hosting Power 106 on their site. The radio station deserves a corporate award for the sterling and yeoman work that its staffers performed during and after Ivan. We expatriates in Canada and across the far-flung corners of the globe (one Jamaican living in Tokyo called in to the extended 'Nationwide' programme during the height of the storm on Friday) formed a virtual community of shared hopes, fears and best wishes as we vicariously lived through the horror of the hurricane. For an extended period, we all touched base with our motherland, our rock and our yard and perhaps ­ if I may abuse poetic licence ­ encouraged the wobble that saved Jamaica."

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20040917/news/news1.html