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Show By Jack Wallis ,'s(Xm) Power outage What can you do when the power goes off? Especially on a hot summer day. Air conditioners quit, clocks go off, lights are out and electric doors won't open. Stoves don't cook, dishwashers will not wash, disposals don't dispose, typewriters will not type and adding machines will not add. Gasoline pumps won't pump, cash registers will not register, computers won't compute. Then what can you do when the power goes off? Some thought they could to go the mountain Saturday but found that the road to the mountain was blocked for two-and-a-half hours by one of the most gruesome accidents in a long time. The power outage made Saturday grocery shopping difficult. Traffic control con-trol was also a problem because there were no red and green lights telling motorists when to go and when to stop. It was a mighty hot job for city officers directing traffic for four hours. A few places in town are prepared for power failures. The telephone company com-pany and the hospital have always had their own auxiliary power, their operations opera-tions are essential to a community's safety and well being. Then there is the radio station. For those who have battery-powered radios, it's nice to be able to listen to the radio when all the power is off. A few businesses have small power generators to keep essential operations opera-tions going. We expect that more and more of these auxiliary power supply sources will be installed as more and more businesses depend on computers for all their business operations. Nothing is more irritating than power interruptions when on line with a computer. Computers can't perform their miraculous functions without a constant power supply. If the power goes off, out the hatch goes all the stored memory information. After the blimp you always wonder just how much did I lose and how far back does the void go. When the power was finally turned back on we happened to be watching the person push the switch that brought the large wire back into circuit. cir-cuit. A large spark and a splattering noise and once again the miracle of .: electricity was back into our homes and businesses. To see what electricity did to the Vernal station insulators and switch one wonders how it can get so hot so quick. What would happen if the lines were not protected with blow-out fuses that shut off the power when things go wrong? Have you ever wondered just what is electricity? Most persons who have been shocked by small amounts of electricity have a high respect for it. But most of us take it for granted. We know it is there and we expect it to do a lot of our work. Last week we climbed through the Bonanza Power Plant. After we spent several hours gaping at the internal workings of a coal-fired power plant we came away with a greater appreciation ap-preciation for all it takes to generate electricity. In fact, we wonder why it takes so much apparatus to make electricity; elec-tricity; there ought to be an easier way. When you look at the costs of building present-day power plants and then figure out how much it will take to run them, you wonder how they ever make ends meet. Think of burning up 35 rail cars of coal each holding 100 tons every day. Then add all the other materials used in power generation and you wonder how can we afford this stuff called electricity. When you think of how mysterious electricity is, it makes one wonder how this form of energy can be sent from community to community through several large wires. Electricity, its generation, transmission transmis-sion and control is fascinating and amazing. For four hours last Saturday we were handicapped because we did not have any electricity. What would we ever do if the power would go off for days at a time? When you see all the machinery it takes to generate electricity it would not take much to make a power plant inoperable for days or even years if a serious mishap or mechanical failure should take place. The miracle of electric power is hard to fully understand. Just when we enter the computer generation and think we are really smart with fancy machines to do most of our tedious work, someone pulls the plug and puts us back in the dark, leaving us to wonder how long it will be before the power comes back on. |