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Even the Rich Aren't Immune to Power Outages

Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

Even the Rich Aren't Immune to Power Outages

 
January 07, 2015

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  By Rory J. Thompson, Web Editor

For those with the means and the vacation hours, the Christmas / New Year’s break is a great time to get away and do a little skiing or snowboarding. Add in the guarantee of plenty of fresh powder, and the snow resort of Whitefish, Montana, braced for record crowds over the recent Christmas holiday. Merchants weren’t disappointed by the turnout, but they couldn’t say the same about the unplanned cell service and power outage that followed.


According to both the Whitefish Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce, occupancy rates were at or near 100 percent through much of the holidays. The crowds “[fueled] the hospitality industry in Whitefish’s downtown district while funneling record crowds to Whitefish Mountain Resort’s Big Mountain,” according to local paper The Flathead Beacon.

Still, things came to a stuttering halt on New Year’s Eve when cell service suddenly went down.

“It was wall-to-wall downtown inside and outside of businesses, and obviously with the dependence that people have on their electronic devices it probably put a cramp in some folks’ evening plans,” Kevin Gartland, president of the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce, told the Beacon.

Then, two days later, a power outage in Whitefish left area businesses in the dark, and while some chose to remain open through the blackout they were unable to accept credit and debit cards.

“According to Flathead Electric Cooperative spokesperson Wendy Ostrom-Price, a blown transformer at the Whitefish substation caused the outage shortly after 7:30 p.m.,” the Beacon reported. “She said at the peak of the outage more than 6,300 customers were left in the dark. Power was restored across Whitefish by the early morning hours of Jan. 4. She said it’s unclear what caused the transformer to break but that it was replaced the following day.”

While not much can be done when cell service goes out, for businesses it makes sense to have some form of power protection from a UPS, or Uninterruptible Power Supply. These are designed to ensure you have the time necessary to save any data before a loss of power sets in, allowing you to protect that data and your business.

A loss of power is a very real one for any industry, so all businesses should take the necessary steps to ensure they have power protection they need before needing it. In doing so, they can focus on maintaining business processes, even if they have to do so by flashlight. It’s a lesson some folks in Whitefish learned the hard way.




Edited by Maurice Nagle
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