The Nor'Easter Test for Your Website

Picture this. It's February. A nor'easter just ripped through the Fundy coast. Trees are down. Power's been out for six hours. Someone's got water pouring into their basement. They grab their phone, data spotty, battery at 30%, and search "emergency plumber [city]."

Your site pops up. They tap it. And they wait. Three seconds. Five seconds. A loading spinner. Some massive hero image trying to download on a struggling LTE connection. They give up. Hit back. Call the next result.

That's not a hypothetical. That's Thursday night in January in New Brunswick. It happens every winter. Multiple times.

What the test looks like

Turn off your wifi. Use your phone's data. Go somewhere with mediocre signal (your bathroom usually works). Now load your website. Time it.

If it's over 3 seconds, you fail the test. During an actual emergency, with cell towers overloaded and everyone in the area searching at once, it'll be even worse.

What passes the test

Light pages. Compressed images. No massive video backgrounds. No fifteen JavaScript widgets loading before the content appears. Your phone number visible instantly even before the rest of the page finishes loading.

The businesses that pass this test get the emergency calls. Emergency calls are usually the highest-value work. And they come from people who will be loyal customers forever because you answered when they were desperate.

Build your site like someone might need you at 2am during a storm. Because they will.