Tracking power outages

Blackouts and outages are not good for the average geek: Take away the power to our devices and we get all twitchy. So the Blackout Tracker provided by Eaton is interesting.

The tracker’s primary page looks at the USA, but there is a link on the side to the Oceania section. You can sort by time or by cause and the page tries to give an indication of severity. The thing I found most interesting was how few outages there really are. Had I been asked before looking at this I would have guessed there would be many more.

My favourite entry? On the 9th of February 12,000 people in Northern Sydney were affected when “a small marsupial came in contact with electrical equipment – and to a sad end”.

Why does Eaton provide this information? Because they sell uninterruptable power supplies of course.