While we reported on the BlackBerry service outage (and subsequent magical restoration) earlier, what we didn't note was that it apparently threw Washington, D.C. into sheer chaos. Reuters was on the ground: "I felt like my left arm had been amputated," said Joe Shoemaker, communications director for Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Dick Durbin of Illinois. It was, in a word, "crippling."

New York suffered similar end-of-the-world-like disbelief, as "one Wall Street analyst said she kept hitting her BlackBerry's version of a 'refresh' button, not believing that the system could fail." Also in New York, Charles Ross, a criminal defense lawyer, was left feeling "vulnerable and uncomfortable."

Yes, that's how we're strangely feeling right now: vulnerable and uncomfortable. – Matt Buchanan

BlackBerry e-mail outage upsets White House, Wall St [Reuters/Yahoo!]

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