Lessons Learned - India's Power Crisis

This past week, India suffered a massive power outage, stranding millions and leaving over 670 MILLION people without power.  This crisis continued to unfold into a second day. 

India may be better suited for this event than America based upon this excerpt:

But despite the scale of the power failure, many Indians responded with shrugs. In the first place, India’s grid is still being developed and does not reach into many homes. An estimated 300 million Indians have no routine access to electricity.

Second, localized failures are routine. Diners do not even pause in conversation when the lights blink out in a restaurant. At Delhi’s enormous Safdarjung Hospital, doctors continued to rush around as hundreds of patients lay in darkened hallways.

Third, so many businesses employ backup generators that, for many, life continued without much of a hiccup. Dr. Sachendra Raj, the manager of a private Lucknow hospital, rented two new generators two months ago, and they were keeping the hospital’s dialysis machines running and the wards air-conditioned. “It’s a very common problem,” Mr. Raj said. “It’s part and parcel of our daily life.” 

Ironically, the lack of a resilient power grid may have made them resilient in this case.  How would America react to a power outage of this magnitude?  In early July 2012, the East Coast suffered a power loss, but only 2 million were without power.  It occurred during terrible summer thunderstorms and left the area powerless during a following heatwave.  Egypt experienced a massive crippling outage as well.

Upon reviewing the linked news articles, several questions arise.    I present the following questions in the effort to promote thoughts and discussions about this.  These are designed to cause you to pause and plan, or at least consider planning, before something happens.  If you are a business leader, manager, or small business owner, these questions extend from you to your employees.  How do you as a supervisor take care of your employees and their families if needed?

I ask, if the power were to go out, RIGHT NOW, on a massive scale, what would you do at each of the below locations.......

Work

• How would you check on your family?
• You might be able to use your laptop or cell phone since they are battery operated, but if the internet/cell service provider is without power, how will the tower or server relay the information?  They might have generators, but what if they do not?  Even if they do, will you be able to get through the increased communications traffic?
• What is the decision from leadership?  Are you staying at work, or have you been sent home for the day?  Are you the leadership, the decision maker?  What decision do you make?  Why?  What about tomorrow or the next day?  Are you coming in to work if the power is still out? 
• If you are a part of the leadership, have you accounted for all of your employees?  What about the ones offsite for the day?  Are any stuck in elevators by chance?
• Do your electronic card door locks work?  Or is everything locked down or locked open?
• Did you purchase emergency supplies for the workplace?  Do you open them yet?  Or do you wait?
• Do you implement your Business Continuity plan?  If not, why not?
• Are you hungry?  Have you eaten?  Did you pack a lunch or did you bring money to buy lunch today?  Do you avoid cash and rely on your credit/debit cards for transactions?  How are you going to buy food when the power goes out?
• What’s in your desk or locker or vehicle to eat?  (How long has it been there – gross!)
• Presume that you have been sent home, How are you getting out of the building?
• Can you see in the hallway?  While laws require battery powered emergency lights in specific locations, it does not mean they work, or the batteries are fresh.  At a previous client location, the power went out, I counted eight (8) battery backup lights which were not working.  Eight out of ten.  While this location could have been the exception, but what if you are at “the exception?”  Can you navigate the hallway or stairwell or basement without light?  Have you tried?  Do you have a flashlight or alternative light source available at your desk?  What about when you go to the conference room on the next floor?  Do you have an extra set of batteries in case the light gets turned on by accident (personal experience!)?  One of the onboarding processes for newly reported sailors on a ship requires them to navigate from their bed to a weather deck (weather exposed area on a ship) with a blackout hood on their head.  As a former sailor who participated in this process several times, I can tell you, little makes you memorize the path and amount of steps taken to the weather deck like a blackout hood. 
• Do the elevators work?
1. My new client site, leaving the building is not a large issue, as I'm in the bottom 1/3 of a tall high rise, I'll walk down the stairs.  However, if I'm at my corporate location, I'm located in the top 1/3 of a 48 story building.  Walking down over 35 stories can be daunting, especially if a person is out of shape or has mobility issues.  What about the other people in the same building?  For anyone who hasn't seriously evaluated these possibilities, please, please, take the time and review stories from the stairwells in the World Trade Center on 9/11.  They will be eye opening.  By the way, how many stairwells are at your location?  Can you use both/all of them?  Do you know where they empty?  Can you get there in the dark?
• Whoops, you cut your hand on the door going into the stairwell.  Where is the first aid kit?  Wait, you can’t go back inside the office because the door locked behind you, leaving you in the stairwell.  Remember you can always get out, you cannot always get back in.
• You finally get to your vehicle, Is your vehicle behind electrical doors or gates or is it in an open parking lot you can drive off at your will?
• Or…do you stay at work?

ON THE ROAD

• Are you supposed to pick anyone up on the way home, i.e. kids from the daycare?  Have you arranged extended stays with the babysitter if you are unable to efficiently get home?
• If you had to, can you walk home, RIGHT NOW? 
• Are you wearing the latest fashioned, leather soled wingtips (guilty...) or the $200 high heels that were made by people who hate feet? Can you walk several miles in them on roads, sidewalks, trails, grass fields, muddy dirt lots, etc? 
• In 2005, the average commute distance was 16 miles. Are you prepared, RIGHT NOW, to walk that distance?  What if you travel for your job, take a medical supply salesman, who commutes 15 miles to work, but is, on average 60 miles away from the office any given day to see clients?  While we’re thinking about these numbers, a marathon is 26.2 miles long and takes athletes between 4.5 to 5.25 hours to complete while running.  Walking…in business attire…carrying bags of stuff, in an adverse environment….how long would it take you? 
• Are you physically able to complete the distance? 
• What neighborhoods do you have to walk through to get home?  Pause on that for a minute…Are you prepared or able to walk through those rougher neighborhoods? 
• What obstacles are in your way?  If you work in DC, but live in Northern Virginia, do you know alternate ways around the river? 
• How hot/cold is it?  Is it raining or snowing?  Does the weather drive your decision to leave work or home?
• Do you have food or snacks to eat?  Water?
• It’s been four hours, you finally have cell signal or are able to get out on the cell phone.  Whoops again, it isn’t charged.  In fact, it killed itself searching for a signal or trying to resend a text message for the past two hours.  No GPS or maps to get you home if you are walking or driving on side streets to avoid the massive gridlock…now what?
• Did you take the subway, metro, or BART to work?  Do they have backups?   The San Francisco Bay Area BART does not.  If there is a power outage, local power plants must re-route prioritized power to the stations affected to keep the trains moving.  However, if there is a wide-spread outage, say, regional or larger, they stay where they are.  Therefore, I ask, if you subway, metro, or BART, how are you proceeding?  Do you wait, do you leave the train and return to work, do you leave the train and head home?  What are your options?
• What about all of your ‘luggage?’  I currently use a mass transit system to and from work.  I observe, everyday, people taking two, three, four bags into work.  A lady will have her purse (1), a laptop case (2), a briefcase/messenger bag (3), and another bag (4) full of ‘stuff.’  A guy will have a gym bag (1), his laptop case/briefcase (2), and a lunch bag (3).  People tend to bring several bags when they are headed to work or home, or commuting in general.  What happens to all of this ‘stuff’ when you have to walk home, or stand at a subway station for several hours?  Are you using a backpack or a messenger bag for work?  Are you taking several bags into work?  Is everything necessary?  If you had to leave the building RIGHT NOW, or had to walk home a long distance, would you take them?  If so, why?  If not why not?  Is there anything that can be left at work to lighten the load?  If not, are there other options that would make it easier to travel, perhaps a rollaway bag, or backpack?

HOME

·       You’re finally home, either through traffic in the car, by mass transit or by the soles of your now blistered feet.  Are you hungry yet?  Well, according to the CDC, avoid the fridge if it’s been over two hours.  Your freezer may be okay, but your water supply is questionable. 

1.       How are you going to eat/drink without power? 

2.       Is your stove electric or gas?  If it’s gas, is it electronic ignition?  If so, do you have matches to light it?  What about the oven?

• What about your refrigerated meds, insulin, liquid amoxicillin, etc.  Can those last?  Can you safely use them?  If not, what are your options? 
• How hot or cold is it right now?  Do you have enough blankets to stay warm for a few hours to a few days?  What about your elderly family members?
• Are your smoke detectors/fire alarms beeping at you yet?  What do you plan to do with them?  Remember that fire exists outside of electricity.  If you disable them, what is your plan for fires?
• Do you have lanterns?  Are they propane or kerosene or battery powered?  What about your flashlights?  Did the batteries leak last winter, causing acidic corrosion in and around the battery compartment?
• Do you have family members who require power for medical equipment?  How long do their batteries last?  

We all could go on and on with this list of questions.  Think about your ability to continue working, head home to another location, and/or take care of your family in an austere environment.

Remember that action almost always beats reaction.  Plan ahead, consider all of these questions and ask yourself, “How can I become better prepared?”  If you are in a position of leadership, are you doing enough for your staff?  Begin the planning process, become resilient.