Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

On Friday, April 17, a garbage truck hit a power pole in Indio, California around nine in the morning. Accidents happen all the time. But according to the Imperial Irrigation District (IID), a power outage from the accident was reported at 9:15 a.m. and it subsequently disrupted the service of more than 900 customers.

Even an hour and a half after the first report, there were still 141 customers without power, and all but five had their power back by 6:45 p.m.; those remaining got powered back up by 8 p.m. To say this was a major inconvenience for those remaining customers is an understatement, but no matter how long a power outage takes to get resolved, the problems it creates can be disastrous in the connected world in which we live.

As more companies implement flexible work schedules and allow employees to work from home, it falls on individuals to take the necessary precautions to protect their computers, routers, mobile devices, printers and other essential equipment with backup power and surge protection solutions.

Even though tablets and laptops have taken market shares from desktop PCs, the vast majority of people still use their desktop when doing work at home. Because desktops don’t have their own batteries, it is extremely important to have a UPS back-up to ensure the user can save their work and shut down the computer properly.

Before you make the decision to purchase a UPS system, make sure it can support all of the devices you are going to be plugging into it. The Minuteman SizeMyUPS tool is an online solution that lets users determine the right device for their specific application. This ensures all of their equipment will be protected, and depending on the configuration that has been selected, key equipment will have enough power to initiate emergency shutdown procedures.

Accidents will always happen, and as the incident in Indio demonstrated, the power outage can last for a short period or almost 12 hours. If you rely on your home office to make a living, you have to make contingency controls to protect your data and equipment so you can continue working.