I worked maintenance at the 1982 World's Fair. Aluminum balloons were just beginning to be popular then. Someone turned one loose and it went right into the substation on site. Power was off about half a day.
A nursing home I used to work in had a 2000 amp system. Halon has IIRC been declared not green friendly & prohibited so the state fire marshal required us to install a water sprinkler system over the switchboard.
That wasn't bad enough we had an emergency generator maybe 200-400 amps I can't remember. Enough for lights and one elevator to operate plus patient life support and the boilers. That generator had absolutely no means to be shut down from outside that room. It was in the same room as the switch. I've never seen anything so poorly planned and set up in my life.
I informed my boss in no uncertain terms that if that sprinkler popped off I was going to call him from a pay phone up the street. He said but the sprinkler will trip the utilities main outside. I said OK now what about the generator? Half the time when we had a power failure the transfer gear didn't fully engage the contacts and we had to knock them closed with a 2X4 in the dark. On my shift I was the only maintenance man there. I'd get the janitor to stand beside me with a board ready to knock me winding. I told him if I jerked suddenly to hit me as hard as possible and run.
On my ship, our berthing space was over the engine room. When the air conditioning worked, it was comfortable. When it didn't, it was 110 degrees and 100 percent humidity.
No booze allowed; we had beer call exactly twice with either two cans of Drewry’s or Carling Black Label (gag!).
The chief cook managed to ruin tomato juice!! The cook's food was so bad, we considered C-rations and freeze dried Long Range Patrol Rations as gourmet meals.
From March to October, I got off the ship to go ashore twice for a total of six hours. Normal work week was Monday to Friday with a half day on Saturday, On Sunday, the LST came along side to replenish supplies and restock us with ammo. Normal watch rotation was eight off and four on; I got out of the watches due to standing duty gun crew every third night — and we were always guaranteed a shoot at sometime during the night. We slept on deck next to the quad 40mm gun tub.
All you Carnival cruse weenies give it a rest. You're whining is pathetic. And no, I did not volunteer for this; I was a Naval Reservist doing my two years’ active duty. After we took the ship back to decommission her, I got transferred to SEAL/UDT boat support. Of my 24 month's active duty, I spent 15 months (two tours) in war zone. The second tour was even MORE primitive than the first.
Yes, Halon is gone due to ozone depletion. FM-200 is the replacement waterless extinguishing agent. The typical use for commercial occupancies is serious computer rooms and such. It’s likely the military uses it where halon used to be used.
And yes, the last time I looked, NFPA-13 had no exception for electrical rooms. I don’t know the history behind that, but it was always a bit of a head-scratcher for me. I’m sure it was a cause for contention with the NFPA-70 guys at some point.