Surface Ripples

No Power

Towards the end of 2023, we experienced an almost nationwide power cut.  Our offices had to close, many residential areas were without power until 1:30 am the next mornin, and at the time, nobody seem to know what had caused the cut. 

The power cut came at midday, when the country was at its hottest and temperatures exceeded 30°C. We closed our business and went home.  Luckily, our business is the sort that lends itself to remote working, so that wasn’t a problem.  For some (lucky) reason, we had power in our residential area so could work in air-conditioned comfort.  This wasn’t the case with all our team and some of them must have spent a very unpleasant afternoon (albeit at home) until power was restored.

Imagine the effects: 

• Businesses forced to close because they had no power and couldn’t ring up sales on cash tills. 
• At home, suffering from 30°C heat whilst waiting for power to come back online.
• Traffic lights inoperative due to lack of power (one of our team saw two traffic light related accidents on their way home).
• Schools forced to close. 
• Port and airport services again, reduced to the bare minimum (hopefully they had emergency power supplies).
• Police stations perhaps also forced to close, the same with fire stations. 
• School exams, interrupted and schools, having to let pupils and staff return home.
• Other necessary businesses and services closed.
• Potential security problems arising from systems, electrically, operated doors, et cetera not working due to lack of power.

This was an eye-opener. We’ve experienced short (power cuts lasting around one or two hours) power cuts before and luckily, they’ve been at night. This was more serious: it happened during a working day.  What would the impact on the economy have been?

Workers would have had to go back home (especially if their children had been sent back from school) and wait until they could get air-conditioning, or at the very least a fan going when power whilst restored.  Refrigerators and freezers in supermarkets would have stopped working and food may have spoiled.  

The elderly and ill would have suffered. 

That there was economic damage, there is no doubt.  The question I asked myself after this, though, was what would be our plan if this happened again?  As I mentioned before, for our business, it was easy to send our team home, but for others, this may not have been such an easy option.

Equally, when we got home, we might have found that we had no power.  What would we have done then?  Basic precautions like keeping fridges and freezers closed were one thing but we would have had no air-conditioning and no fans operable.  This would be a situation where any solar powered fans or large capacity, portable power stations would have come into play. 

The problem is these things cost money and would have to be bought over a period of time.  I’ve seen plenty of large capacity power banks that can be charged from the mains or a solar panel, and that can supply a low domestic current for a short period of time.  However, they are expensive and I don’t know what their “useful life” is.  There seems little point in investing hundreds of dollars in a high-capacity power station that might only be needed once or twice a year and will lose its capacity after four or five years. We would then have the additional problem of disposing of it in an environmentally friendly manner.

The other option would, of course, be a generator powered by petrol, diesel or other fuel.  These again need maintenance, and unless one lives in an area that is prone to regular power cuts (at least once a week or more) they are probably a luxury rather than necessity.  In the gales of October 1987, after my parents’ house was cut off from electrical power for 10 days, my father invested in a generator which was never needed for emergency power from that moment on.  

What are our contingency plans as leaders in the event that our offices, and or Holmes are deprived of power for more than, say, two hours?  What are the security and welfare aspects for our staff that we need to consider? Which of our staff could get home easily?

Our job as leaders is to have plans for these, and discuss them with our people, so, if something happens, people have direction.

I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website  provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  

Labels: Crisis Management, Leadership, Strategy, Teamwork

posted by William Martin @ 10:59