Night thoughts
Brad Thompson, Contributing Technical Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 6/1/2007
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At 3:22 a.m. the lights went out, triggering the alarms on our household PCs’ UPSs and startling our cat, who launched himself from the bed and awakened me. After silencing the alarms and soothing the cat’s jangled nerves, I lay awake thinking night thoughts and listening to the storm’s winds howling through the pines and the sleet ticking on the windows.
Were we ready for a prolonged power outage? I hadn’t tested our standby generator in months, and the transfer switch I bought a few years ago languishes in its carton awaiting installation. And were we ready for a larger emergency that would force us to relocate our household for a few days?
Hearing tree branches snapping in the wind, I wondered whether the telephone and coaxial-cable lines would escape damage. As a society, we’ve grown dangerously dependent on instant communications via cell phones, which in turn rely on AC power sources to recharge their batteries and operate the cell sites. While wired-phone service offers greater resilience, mechanical damage can disrupt its lines. An amateur-radio “go package” comprising a low-power multiband transceiver, a high-capacity gel-cell battery, and basic antennas could provide emergency message-relay service, but as of yet, I haven’t assembled one.
I arose, disturbing the cat again as I stumbled into the bathroom for aspirin and a glass of water. If the semiconductor industry ran on pharmaceutical models, we’d still be using 7400-series TTL as “glue” logic for the latest systems-on-a-chip. We’d test semiconductors by building products, device data sheets would appear in two-point typefaces, and no design engineer would ever pay for lunch again.
The aspirin helped me drift off to sleep, only to awaken too soon at the usual time thanks to a battery-powered clock radio. A propane camp stove provided hot water for coffee, and our wood stove provided a modicum of warmth. Later, I would spend several hours patch-wiring the generator into the house power panel (after locking out the service-entrance circuit breaker) and using the car to jump-start the generator. AC power would return several hours later, and data service a few hours after that.
We were lucky. The storm inflicted only minor inconveniences on our household, while other parts of New Hampshire experienced 100-year flooding for the second year in a row. I gave my personal disaster-response readiness a grade of C-minus. What’s yours? What’s your company’s?
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