Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

Who would have thought that a creature as cute and relatively small as a fox could wreak such havoc on an entire region’s power source? Yet that was the case not once, but twice, for St. George, Utah area residents recently. In both instances, a fox sought warmth and shelter inside a transformer cabinet and was electrocuted, causing residents of three towns to go without power for more than 30 minutes.

As the weather turns increasingly chilly, area residents are becoming concerned that the situation could keep happening, impacting warmth and operations for both businesses and homes. In extreme cases, the result could be fatal, and one local family says their father tragically died during the second Utah outage, after his oxygen machine was turned off and they failed to locate backup tanks in time.

At a minimum, businesses across the board are impacted by these types of outages if they fail to have the appropriate power protection in place. Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and solutions like surge protection, remote power management devices and power distribution units (PDUs) can go a long way toward ensuring business systems stay functional during an outage, so that customers are not inconvenienced and revenues aren’t lost.

And in healthcare particularly, power protection is critical and that was certainly the case during an outage at Gateway (News - Alert) Medical Center in Clarksville, TN, in September. In that instance, the hospital experienced a 30-minute outage after the power failed and emergency backup generators didn’t start up. Patient care and critical emergency equipment continued to function properly, however, thanks to power protection and battery backups.

For its part, St. George is setting humane traps to catch and release foxes and keep them away from transformers. The city has also ordered special equipment to keep doors sealed and keep out the critters to avoid future problems.

Ultimately, though, power outages do occur for one reason or another. And the only way to properly protect your business operations is to ensure you have power protection in place in the event of an emergency.