Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

It seems that whether I am reading the news or watching it on TV, I see severe weather conditions, possible terrorist attacks, or broken tree branches knocking out power in areas all around the country. The one thing that you normally do not hear about is the occasional “wrong wire” being cut by a contractor doing work on a building.

If it were to happen to my building, it would not be newsworthy enough to be reported on. However, if several buildings were affected, or if my building happened to be a government building, then everyone would know about it! According to the Alaska Dispatch News, that was the case at Anchorage City Hall last week.

To be honest, blame was bantered about, but there has been no confirmation that the outage which began at 11:40 a.m. on July 22 was actually caused by a “small procedure misstep” by a contractor during a routine sprinkler system check at the South Anchorage data center. A spokesperson for the company performing the work, McKinley Fire Suppression, denied any company fault, claiming that a similar outage occurred the previous year.

Regardless of who or what was to blame, the fact remains that the town’s city hall with without access to telephones, email, timekeeping and electronic financial systems, basically everything they needed to conduct business, for a couple of hours until 1:30 p.m.

There are a lot of circumstances that can cause a power outage, but that does not mean that a “small procedure misstep” should result in loss of data, or be the cause of having to replace damaged equipment. The use of a simple uninterruptable power supply (UPS) can remove the cause of many would-be headache situations.

I cannot begin to mention how many times my Minuteman UPS kept me from having those headaches. As soon as the alarm sounds on my device I am able to safely save all open documents on my computer, shut down all sensitive electronic equipment and wait for the power to return.

When power goes out, everyone wants to find out if their loved ones are safe, so everyone gets on their cell phones. Before you know it, the battery is at about five percent and now all communications are lost. The on/off button on your UPS is a pretty handy option, once you shut down all of your valuable equipment, turning the UPS off saves the remaining battery for as long as possible. The UPS can then be used sporadically to recharge necessary items such as your smartphone.

There are many uses for a UPS, and Minuteman makes models that can be used in enterprise data centers, as well as in your home. We live in an electronic age with almost every device connected, but what happens when the power goes out? Placing strategic UPSs can keep you from ever finding out.