Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

When you think of the worst possible times to experience a power outage, a few scenarios likely come to mind. Personally, I think that getting stuck in an elevator or going through surgery during a power outage are some of the worst things that could happen. But what if the power were to go out during a confirmation hearing for the President-elect’s CIA nominee? You might not think this would be a big deal, but it caused quite the commotion when this exact scenario happened on Thursday.

Yesterday, the confirmation hearing for Donald Trump’s CIA nominee, GOP Rep. Mike Pompeo, took a turn that no one was expecting. About 10 minutes into the hearing, the room went dark during Sen. Mark Warner’s statement. This on its own shouldn’t have caused anything but a slight inconvenience. However, the power happened to go out right when Warner started talking about Russian interference in the presidential election.

Now, unless you’ve been ignoring all news stories for the past few months, you know that the topic of Russian interference in U.S. politics has been exploding lately. So the fact that the power went off at the first mention of Russia seemed to be a bad omen to many people, and even sparked several conspiracy theories suggesting that Russia is still meddling in U.S. affairs.

Even Senators found the incident to be too much of a coincidence, with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) tweeting, “Lights suspiciously went off in hearing room for new CIA director, Mike Pompe[o]. Hmmm… ”

This isn’t the atmosphere you want to have during a hearing, especially when it involves the CIA nominee. With tensions already high during a stressed political time, the power outage did not help calm things down.

The hearing eventually moved to the adjacent Dirksen Senate Office Building and resumed in about a half hour, but the damage had already been done. This unfortunate coincidence could have been avoided entirely if the building had had UPS systems in place to get the power back up and running quickly.

 In this case, not having UPS systems installed resulted in even more rumors and suspicion about the upcoming administration. For businesses, power outages can also be detrimental by leading to the loss of unsaved work. In worst case scenarios, businesses sometimes have to close down for a day or more, resulting in lost revenue. So, although losing power may not make your company suspicious in the eyes of the American people, it can still hurt business through lost data and lost revenue.

Why take that chance? Consider investing in UPS systems to ensure that you’re covered during a power outage.