Everyone seems to overlook the point here. That yet again Amazon were slow as hell to be honest with their customers. I get it up down reports help but why do you keep using a service which lies to you about availability. I've read on HN in the past how the dashboard can only be updated to reflect an issue with approval. (Comments section on a similar posting, believe it if you wish).
So why not move to a hosting company that is transparent and open about their status. I'll not make suggestions as I don't want to be accused of trying to shill for a specific provider but there are plenty out there. 45 min to update their public dash is too slow. They either don't care, don't monitor or they are trying to hide their stats for fear Jeff will beat the staff for SLA violations.
If any other provider lied to customers the way AWS does they wouldn't be tolerated why do you tolerate this behaviour from AWS?
Edited to fix auto correct issues