I too work in the server field, and honestly, you can't prepare for everything but you need to test things first. It really doesn't seem like this was tested if they started saying "Oh, routine patch, no servers down" and now everything is off for 2+ hours in primetime.
Seriously, that's just bad admin form and I would looooove to see the RCA (root cause analysis) on this one. Piss-poor change control discipline is the number one cause for dismissal where I work! Coordinating this stuff on a global basis isn't easy but NA and EU at the same time? Baaaad planning.