Power failures in the midst of heat waves or winter storms can literally be lethal.
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But hundreds of traffic lights were still not working in Maryland because of power failures.
Short-lived disruptions like relatively brief power failures and moderate earthquakes can stop production for days.
And telecoms firms, hospitals and businesses usually have contingency plans to deal with power failures or flooding.
Widespread power failures were feared, along with flooding in coastal areas still recovering from Superstorm Sandy in October.
Emergency power failures caused section doors to slam shut, panicking some passengers who had no idea what was happening.
The problems can be caused by power failures, inadvertent severing of telecommunications links, corrupted software, bad hardware or human error.
Early customers are using the Bloom boxes to power offices, which are more tolerant of power failures than data centers.
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The nuclear plant has suffered two power failures in the past month.
Around the New York metropolitan area, many victims of Superstorm Sandy were mercifully spared another round of flooding, property damage and power failures.
The tsunami-crippled plant has suffered three power failures in five weeks.
Even more power failures were expected by Tuesday morning, officials said.
Mayor Cory Booker urged residents to prepare for widespread power failures.
Among the industrial companies most affected were refineries, some of which remained closed Tuesday amid power failures or operated at reduced rates while owners assessed damage.
Emergency and X-ray equipment suffered power failures at Wishaw - home to Scotland's second biggest maternity unit - for more than an hour until full power was restored.
In September, a lightning strike caused power failures on the LIRR, stranding passengers for several hours and prompting a call for a "commuter bill of rights" from Sen.
The first application the firm has in mind is a niche in this market, but it is an important one: stabilising the grid in order to prevent power failures.
In Connecticut, where utility rates are the highest in the U.S. after Hawaii, residents who once adored living in an urban forest are getting increasingly frustrated by massive power failures that many fear could become a chronic problem.
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There have been major earthquakes, floods, power-grid failures, and Internet outages for decades.
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For example, changes in the Sun's activity can send huge amounts of energy towards the Earth which buffet and reconfigure the magnetosphere, causing disruption to communications, power-line failures and even the destruction of satellites.
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Spurred by California's mess, federal officials are looking more widely at failures in the wholesale power market.
And the U.S. government has sued contractors for failures including developing a power plant in Kabul and providing security guards in Iraq.
In order to avoid power outages from component and equipment failures, analysts believe the industry will replace 0.5% to 1.0% of transmission mileage annually over the next two decades.
The failures are blamed on problems with power supplies, either with batteries not working or with cables snapping in the cold.
On top of the business failures, the company has been embroiled in a power struggle.
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For example, in large hotels, voltage dips and power interruptions of less than a second can result in booking and reservation system failures, which are extremely expensive.
That is, the failures that brought him down were not his failures in office, but his private failings which predated his rise to power.
In recent months the company recalled 572, 000 Honda Accords for power steering hose issues and 268, 000 CR-Vs for faulty power window switches and 820, 000 Civic and Pilot models for potential low-beam headlamp failures.
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As part of my job, I reported alarming inadequacies: in one case high-grade equipment (ASME III, class 1) was operated in nuclear power reactors with no accepted safety file, regardless of a previous accident and a half-dozen failures in achieving acceptable design results.
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