Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

Despite its name, the New River is, geologically speaking, one of the five oldest rivers in the world. It is the only non-tidal river that crosses the Appalachian Mountains. Recently, it was also the river that caused a major power outage. Actually, the 75-foot tall mast of a sailboat hitting power lines as it was winding down the New River was the culprit.

Amber Jackson, a woman who works near the Florida crash site said, "I just heard a huge explosion and I saw the sailboat rippling in the water. There were sparks coming out." According to Florida Power & Light (FPL), when the mast collided with a power conductor, it caused three power lines to fall, effectively shutting down river traffic in the process.

An FPL spokesman said that the power outage affected about 13,000 customers. Although the outage lasted only about one minute it still had a major impact on two medical facilities. The Broward Health Medical Center and Chris Evert Children’s Hospital had to function on generator power for almost two hours. The end result was that neither facility could accept new patients during this time, as they needed to be diverted to other medical facilities.

This incident brings up two important questions, first how can it be possible for a sailboat to hit the power lines and more importantly, how crucial is it to have backup power at the ready? The answer to the first question was given by Eddie Freay, who is Broward operations leader for Florida Power & Light, when he said "They got high tide and miscalculated the height."

When you consider the fact that two medical facilities were forced to run on generator power for almost two hours following a power outage of maybe less than a minute, the answer to the second question is crucial. Another point to consider is that it is important to test backup units to ensure that they will function when the situation calls for it.

When Hurricane Sandy hit New York, many facilities learned too late that their backup generators did not function properly or were not located in a workable area. Whether it is a sailboat or major storm, we should not need catastrophes to remind us of something this important.

While facilities such as hospitals and utilities rely on huge generators, they are not the only ones that need a backup strategy. A lot of today’s electronic equipment is sensitive to power fluctuations and an outage of even one second could damage the unit. While this may not be a major concern if you live in the city, once you are in an area that has overhead power wires, a broken tree branch could result in a power outage.

Companies such as Minuteman offer uninterruptable power supplies (UPS) designed to put your mind at ease. If you have one of those brief outages you will be able to continue to work. However, if you know that maybe due to a storm, your power will be out for an extended period of time, having enough backup power to calmly shut down all your electronic equipment becomes more of a necessity than a comfort.