I just wanted to update this. I created a new droplet, took only couple of minutes and my app runs fine. This was possible because I have not released the app yet. But, still would like to know if those 2 commands I ran (per the instructs from digital ocean)
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
which seemed to process correctly, did not get my server running and connecting to my app after the shutdown occurred for 15 minutes or so on 2/22.

So I still need some input, if anyone has good information on this issue. I received email that shows another shutdown comping I think on 2/26. Obviously I can’t destroy droplets and create new droplets each time there is a shutdown.
So, other then those 2 commands, what did I need to do to avoid the server connection failing after the shutdowns.
Thanks