Google Local Pack Goes Missing For A Few Hours

First we have Google testing moving down the local pack and yesterday, for a few hours, the local pack went missing completely.

I saw complaints across Twitter, Google Business Help & Google+. By the time I was alerted to it, maybe an hour or so later, the local pack was working just fine for me.

I assume it was a limited bug where it disappeared for some over a few hour time period. But as you can imagine, that would be scary for any local business or local SEO. Here are some of the reactions:

Local Pack results have suddenly disappeared from SERPs. No map, no A-G, no listings, no nada!

Is this an April Fools Day joke Google? Not funny!

Local Packs GONE? This is NO April Fools Joke! - Others were reporting NO local results. Then just happened to me too. All packs gone on both FF and Chrome.

Local results gone here in the Phoenix area. I can't imagine this being permanent.

And indeed, they are back. I personally was never able to replicate it, so it likely was not fully widespread but many were able to.

Forum discussion at Google Business Help & Google+.