Disaster Control (lol)
As a member of the hospital's safety committee, I was invited to be on the new Disaster Control Team. We set up a command center in a long-unused storeroom, making sure we had: Both mains power feeds; Emergency power; and cell phone service.

All good so far, and we had multiple successful drills, and very successfully handled a real disaster when a nearby liquid ammonia (fertilizer) tank burst.

Not all events went so well, however. One day, while the elctricians were working on one of the mains lines, a large cable got out of hand and contacted the other mains line. Cue minor explosion, killing one worker and injuring several others. No emergency power, as all the disribution circuits were fried at their source.

So, here's your intrepid Disaster Control Team, racing down the corridors by the feeble light of the battery-operated emergency lighting. We get to our Command Center, and it's utterly black - no windows, no emergency lighting, no light at all. Also, since the local cell phone tower was on the hospital roof (tallest building around), and relied on our power, no communications.

So we stood in the dark for about 2 bewildered minutes, then headed upstairs to commandeer a room with windows. Needless to say, many lessons were learned that day.
(danalan Pretty good, for an amateur., Thu 23 Jul 2009, 22:23, Reply)