Part #1 Emergency and disaster mitigation and response.
I wake up Tuesday night 07/15/24 and I can feel it. I could hear it. The thunder was deafening. The sound of rain was consistent. Tonight is not the night to fly. Tonight is not the night to have the confidence you did well at the supermarket this morning. The weather is the transportation industry’s number one enemy and tonight it is declaring war.
I once recall a quote from an airline documentary, “When Heathrow coughs, the world catches a cold.” Well, when our air traffic control system skips or trips our industry becomes a living hell. I hear the robocalls ringing in rhythm. When you have phone banks of companies all over the country you are on the receiving end of their cities, suburbs, and villages with the various warning calls going out this night, the weather dysfunction covered numerous regions.
Then the wet emails start arriving. A wet email is any forewarning from a client that their power will likely go down, so they email us a 48 package. A 48 package is a 48-hour order kit including managers on duty and restrictions. Basically, a temporary blueprint of the client’s action. This way they are covered if they go down. Technological routing sends all traffic to us as a primary or sometimes secondary recipient. Some systems must be manually routed via a cell phone. Why you ask does this phenomenon happen? The answer is simple. We are in the communications business, and we have back-up power to keep our systems up for 12 hours minimum. What happens if we hit the 13th hour you ask? Well although it has never happened, we have remote operators and naturally headquarters operators that can become remote. Bottom line is we can manipulate regions to exploit the environment that is or goes live during the times required.
Our primary base is in Chicago. We can have 4 outage zones and 37 live zones in a city this size either simultaneously or via rolling black outs. Maintaining seamless, endless power isn’t an impossibility. It is simply a juggling act. Truth be told, only once in 40 years we were down 9 hours and that was before we had back up power. In fact, that is why we powered up. The question is why such a large percentage of businesses do not have power backup systems? For that matter it appears a large percentage of homeowners don’t have back up power either and they make it so easy and affordable today.
Everyone learns from experience. People live through many storms personally and professionally every year and they know the limitations of their utilities and home or office grids. They can determine if the basement will flood, or the power will die. They have trained their family members to keep the fridge and freezer closed to preserve the goods inside. And naturally we know as always that it is temporary. Or perhaps it was once temporary. If you know your grids limitations, you should have a better preparation plan in place. Problem is, I don’t think the majority have a plan to begin with. It appears that many play Mother Nature’s lottery.
I don’t want to start a debate about global warming, but our tornadoes and hurricanes lately go on road trips to places they never visited before, and they do so with a punch and power unheard of in past times. So, the issue at hand is simple. How to build and assemble a weatherproof, bullet proof power back up system(s) that automatically kicks in and politely knows when it’s job is done.
For the record, backup power is only one component of having a comprehensive disaster program. Operational continuity also involves maintaining all building features from securing the premises, plumbing, and toilet functionality and working HVAC. Lastly, we may act as transportation providers, but we really are in the technology business. For that reason, one must include computers, peripherals and all parts in between.
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