[mass55th]

"I survived 25 years."

Congratulations!! You are a member of a unique club.

Fortunately whenever the power went out at the last facility I worked at, it was usually during the day, and we had a back-up generator system that kicked in shortly after. We had a separate powerhouse outside the facility that was manned by a civilian and an inmate or two during the day shift, and a civilian on the other two shifts, so there was always 24-hour coverage.

[Mark17]

We had back up generators too, but sometimes they didn’t work, like that time. It came back in 5 minutes. By then, there was debris all over the place. The inmates started throwing stuff around, as soon as the lights went.
Once, when I was a controller, I had a bunch of airplanes flying around the pattern, when I lost commercial power, and the back up generator failed. Here I was, with airplanes up the wazzoo, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I had one commercial landline. I called the radar facility, and they made the call on guard, that the airport was now uncontrolled. All the aircraft landed on their own. It was hairy, but they all landed safely.