Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

When a transmission line went down in the Monterey Peninsula at 7 a.m. on October 18, most people thought it would be back right away. But come Monday morning, there were still some lingering effects of the outage.

As reported on ksbw.com, by 2 p.m. PG&E (News - Alert) had only restored power to more than 10,000 customers, leaving around 45,000 customers in the dark. And by 11 p.m., another 28,000 were still without power.

Jaqueline Ratto, a PG&E spokeswoman told the montereyherald.com, “Basically, this is an electric transmission outage. We have transmission lines used to transport electricity at high voltages into various cities into substations. From there it travels to homes or businesses in what we call distribution lines.”

The outage also forced hundreds of businesses to close, leaving only those with generators to open during a busy time in a popular tourist destination. This included some gas stations, restaurants, supermarkets and many others.

This particular incident and many like it point out a power outage can take place any time of day or night, and it cannot be predicted.

The montereyherald.com recommended that residents turn off and unplug electrical equipment, including sensitive electronics and disconnect any appliances (like stoves) that were being used when the power went out. That is because when the power comes back on, surges or spikes can damage your equipment.

If you want to avoid damaging your expensive appliances and consumer electronics, Minuteman, a manufacturer of power protection products, recommends using an uninterruptible power supply or UPS.

A UPS sits between the A/C or wall plug and the equipment you want to protect, such as a flat screen TVs and computers, in order to prevent any damages from power fluctuations. Just as in the case in the Monterey Peninsula, before the power went out and when it is ready to come on, there can be sags, surges, spikes and other anomalies. The UPS controls these anomalies and ensures the right voltage is delivered to your device, or stops power from going through if there is a huge spike.

Additionally, Minuteman has SentryPlus Software, an automatic shutdown and monitoring application that makes sure your computer shuts down properly so you won’t lose any of your valuable data.

In many instances, power outages are restored quickly, usually in a few hours or less. If you are not home to unplug your electronics, when the power comes back on it could fry everything and the data on your computer could be severely compromised. A UPS is not expensive, but the items it protects are.