Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

Blackouts come after many causes—and summer storms are a key culprit. One case in point is a blackout for more than 31,000 utility customers on Lake Tahoe’s South Shore after a lightning storm this Sunday—the first major blackout in years.

The outage began with a lightning strike on a Nevada Energy substation south of Carson City, Nev., according to the Tahoe Daily Tribune. Lights were out on both the California and Nevada sides of the city for about six hours.

While the blackout wouldn’t be considered severe compared to, say, the days and weeks logged on the East Coast after Superstorm Sandy, it still had major repercussions for the community.

For instance, the situation points out the danger of disruption for first responders. For one, the police department’s back-up generator failed it, leading to “a few” 911 calls to go unanswered, according to the paper.

“The police department power went out, and the generator did not operate as it should,” said Lt. Brian Williams (News - Alert). “So we couldn’t answer 9-1-1 calls for a brief period of time until we got it fixed.” The calls were eventually rerouted to the sheriff’s department in Placerville.

Also, pushing out updates on the outage proved difficult, with landlines down. The City of South Lake Tahoe updated its Facebook (News - Alert) page, reaching 15,000 unique page views and contacted citizens via mobile where possible.

Now, the city has started a registration drive at ready.edso.org, asking for mobile numbers where people can be reached in emergency settings.

There were ramifications in the private sector as well, including three-hour delay of the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament. Also, Harvey’s Cabaret Theater inside Harrah’s casino had to cancel a comedy show. Inside the casino, the generators brought auxiliary power up to run elevators and provide lights and essentials, but many restaurants had to resort to limited menus.

“We haven’t added up the financial impact of the power outage,” John Packer, director of entertainment and public relations at Harrah’s and Harveys, told the Tribune. “But because of the limited menu and some restaurant closures during that period of time, there was some loss of revenue.”

It goes to show that even short blackouts can have quantifiable damages for communities—and that backup generators don’t go far enough to head off the issues.

“Even a few minutes of downtime can lead to unsatisfied customers, lost orders, or even halted production lines,” explained a Minuteman Power Technologies, in a blog. “Fortunately, both small and large [uninterruptible power sources (UPSs)] exist to bridge the gap between utility and generator.”