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this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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Has anyone considered that turning off the power might not even be possible without turning it off at hospitals and other critical locations...?
Critical locations like hospitals have backup generators.
all critical locations have huge DC batteries specifically design to take over during a short outage. Then generators.
There would always be a risk any backup systems fail. As another commenter pointed out, in other countries it would be illegal to cut power like that for that kind of reason. And that's a good thing. Power is literally keeping people alive and shouldn't be turned off because it seems mean to leave it on.
But a better point is, no one discussing this knows what downstream effects could happen if they killed the power. Seems kind of crazy to me to pretend we do.
A backup system that isn’t tested regularly is not a backup at all, just the illusion of one.
If you can’t turn the power off with 24h notice then nature will turn it off with zero notice at the most inconvenient moment.
They should indeed do regular tests of their backups. They should also ensure technical staff is on-site during those tests.
I do not follow the logic of people being so blinded by their love of cats that they literally think they can become electrical grid engineers and know all the risks, just because they want to know them.
It does not matter if every single vulnerable building has backups and tested them yesterday (obviously none of that could ever be close to true), it's still a non-zero risk to human lives, for one cat.
They reroute and turn off sections of wiring all the damn time for maintenance, they have crews out in the field who are literally going around, turning some lines off after turning others on, and doing routine work on lines, transformers and other components. It's not life and death, it's just a company being cheap and lazy.
If having a love for life and wanting better outcomes and hope and inspiration for innocent life baffles your sense of logic, then maybe your sense of logic is flawed and holding you back from emotional growth.
Sure go ahead and assume I want the cat to die. Which I didn't. What the fuck.
The cat was rescued apparently anyway.
You're digging yourself into a hole that seems oblivious to normal human feelings and getting irate at the responses. This is all you baby.
The cat isn’t part of the equation, I gave no opinion on that. The risk of never testing your failure response is much higher than the risk of testing your failure response.
If a test happens to save a cat? Lucky cat. If not, they’ll still have to test it at some other point anyway.
I never remotely commented that backup systems shouldn't be tested. Bizarre.
If their back up system fails then it’s their fault for not keeping it up to date. Seriously, my husband is an engineer who designs these battery systems. They do not “fail” if they are maintained and replaced properly.
Patently absurd. Technology often fails regardless of what you do. Inviting that failure would be negligence and should be illegal.
The one thing I know for sure about any engineer is that we are intimately familiar with the concept of things failing when it's least convenient.
I would be astonished if that janky, raggedy wooden pole connects to anything but neighborhood housing.
Say what you mean: "I do not care what is true because what I want to happen is way more important".
Or "your claim 8s unlikely and would have been the reason given by Xcel if true"
Just adding that these operations are federally regulated to remain in operation. They likely don't even have the choice if they can't justify the liability.
Careful, a bunch of downvotes and nasty comments probably are coming your way despite there being a good reason for such regulations.
Lol, I was an electrical product investigator/inspector for 15 years. I've dabbled in being a pariah of sorts. But thanks for the heads up! A level head is a balm these days.
I guess by not turning it off they risked people being electrocuted and possibly result to a brownout within the area, seeing how eventually resulted to bystanders attempting to rescue the cat and a bad PR.
Personally I think it's just a lapse in risk analysis on the electric company.