I don't know why anyone's surprised. A few others and I brought this up earlier when the server acted overloaded for a bit-midday at the peak of donations.. I believe the response from many was yelling back "It did not, you don't know what you're talking about, the server will be fine" over and over... as if wishing a thing to be true will make it true.
It was obvious donation #s would speed up at the end of the day... and they have. And, of course, the server is completely overloaded. Hopefully most of those who want to donate will be able to before midnight.