Is Your Plant Prepared To Handle a Loss Of Power?

Of all hazards our facilities deal with on a daily basis the unexpected loss of power can be the most scary to our workers in terms of the randomness of when this hazard occurs. 

The moment that the power goes off, every worker's heart beat goes up exponentially. The thoughts run the gambit depending on where the worker is in the darkened building. 

If the worker is hoisting a 20 tonne ingot, one hopes the ingot stays up in the air. If the worker is walking through the plant their thoughts revolving around when will the emergency power turns on. The casting operator is remembering the training that they had on aborting a cast. If the workers are lucky the power went off during the day. Here is a story of unexpected power failure:

An electrical fire at Alcoa in Iowa caused the plant to loose power to some it's assets on the afternoon of May 10, 2013.

The fire at a substation that primarily fees Alcoa. They say a circuit breaker caught fire. The fire was reported at 1:27 PM. Power was restored at 2:10 PM. The cause of the fire was unknown. No injuries were reported. 

An Alcoa spokesman said the power outage resulted in some equipment being shutdown for about 60 to 90 minutes. The outage was on the west end of the facility.

Does your plant have a plan to deal with an unexpected power loss? Please Comment.