Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

Business officials try to prepare for every type of disaster situation. They make backups of backups to ensure the safety of their data in the case of storms, utility accidents, or employee sabotage or error. But the obvious question may arise: do they prepare for the destruction a common helium balloon can cause?

InsideNoVa.com, a local news source for Northern Virginia, reported that the Lake Ridge area of the state went dark for about two hours recently. The cause of the power outage was reportedly a set of helium balloons that one might see used at a birthday party. These everyday balloons struck some power lines near a Lake Ridge substation and set off a series of events that solidified darkness between the hours of approximately 12:30 a.m. and 2 a.m.

Dominion Virginia Power is the company in charge of maintenance for the power lines in Lake Ridge. The company spokesman Richard Zuercher commented on the situation and told InsideNoVa that an electrical protection system would normally have protected most customers from a loss of power. When the balloons made contact with the power lines, breakers on their circuits should have opened. In this case, however, a transformer at a nearby substation was affected first by the power surge. The transformer apparently ceased to function and therefore affected a large range of people in the area.

Zuercher said Dominion Virginia Power was investigating the situation to make sure that this sort of accident did not happen again. Although balloons will float where they choose, it should be in the scope of the power company to make sure their systems deal with electrical issues properly and affect as few customers as possible.

For businesses in Lake Ridge, a sudden loss of power could be disastrous to local systems. As this article pointed out, companies often make backups of their data, and more often than not, backups now occur through the Internet where that data is saved in the cloud. Still, it could be worthwhile for companies to invest in an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) that would sit between the main power supply to an office and the servers within the office. In the case of such a power outage, the UPS will make sure systems run as normal. Advanced software could also note the initiation of a UPS and properly initiate a shutdown sequence for those servers. With a safe shutdown, there may still be no power to the city, but systems will be safe from a sudden jolt and possible loss of data.

Not often will anyone see a balloon take out power for an entire city, but it is possible. Businesses can be ready with their right set of backups and secondary power supplies.