At 6:19pm EDT yesterday, the datacenter complex in Virginia that is being used to host the World of Warcraft beta test was hit and damaged by a tornado. Because water was leaking into the building in which our servers were located, we shut down the servers as a precautionary measure and flew out a team of our network engineers to the location to survey the area and provide a preliminary assessment.

This morning, we have confirmed that some hardware has taken on water, so we will need to conduct a careful inspection for damage before we can restore power to the servers. This inspection will take 48 hours or longer to complete, so we encourage you to enjoy the rest of your weekend with other activities, as the World of Warcraft beta test will remain offline for at least that long. We will post another update tomorrow afternoon, and we appreciate your continued patience and support.