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10 Industries Most Affected by Power Outages

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Power outages can strike any home or business. The affects can range from minor inconveniences to major financial loss and even life-threatening danger. Have you ever wondered what types of businesses are most affected when the power goes out? Here we talk about the top 10 industries affected most by power outages.

Top 10 Most Affected Industries

1. Manufacturing—Production lines are halted abruptly, which may result in lost materials and machines breaking down. Supply chains may shut down altogether.

2. Financial—In the stock markets especially, huge transactions need to be made in real time to keep up with competition. Millions of dollars can be lost after just one minute of downtime.

3. IT – Internet technology requires power running at all times. When these systems go down, it can affect any organization they are working with. Lost data, communication interruptions, and crashed computers can all lead to significant financial loss and recovery time.

4. Data Centers—Similar to IT, data centers store and transfer important information and need to remain running at all times. 

5. Restaurants, Food Stores, and Drug Stores—These businesses all carry perishable goods that need to be refrigerated or frozen to keep from going bad. They cannot risk spoilage or contamination and end up throwing a lot of things away.

6. Military—Any hub for military operations suffers greatly in a power outage when communication is lost and security is down.

7. Control Centers—A lot of places such as airports, public transportation systems, traffic control, and utilities rely on control centers to operate. When they go down, they are risking the safety of many people in an instant.

8. Medical—All hospitals and clinics are required to have backup generators because a power outage would endanger lives. Equipment such as oxygen machines, heart monitors, respirators, and x-ray machines to name a few cannot afford to malfunction.

9. Security—This technology can apply to any business, but when security such as camera monitors, intercom systems, and controlled access scanners aren’t working, buildings can be vulnerable to criminal activity. Elevators could also stop working, creating a scary, inconvenient, and dangerous situation for those stuck in a lift.

10. Entertainment—While entertainment is not a necessity, it can severely impact these businesses if there is a power outage. Casinos, movie theaters, and arcades lose a lot of money if they have no backup power in an outage.

Don’t let a scary power outage affect your business.

If the situations above sound frightening, rest assured they can be prevented. Generac offers many business standby generators to protect your business during a power outage. Find out more about how you can ensure the power at your location always stays on.