Storm clouds gathering: labs should prepare now

Laboratories around the globe need to be prepared for weather-related occurrences to preserve not only their investment in instrumentation, but also the integrity of the research being conducted

After 2005's record-shattering hurricane season, in agreement with the US NOAA National Hurricane Center, Franek Technologies recommends that all laboratories in the USA running sensitive instrumentation be proactive in disaster preparedness planning.

It has been predicted that the United States will be at an increased risk for hurricanes and related hazards, such as storm surges, high winds, tornadoes, and thunderstorms, for at least the next ten years so the threat to the nation's laboratories is real.

Supporting over 1200 universities, institutions, and laboratories in North America, from local law enforcement to national government laboratories, Franek Technologies's customised power protection solutions are protecting the integrity of critical DNA, environmental health, and disease control analytical results, as well as over $3 billion in assets worldwide.

The systems in hurricane- and thunderstorm-prone areas continue to help researchers maximise laboratory performance by allowing researchers to get reliable results around the clock, while minimizing economic hardship in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

There are two levels of risk associated with hurricanes and thunderstorms - those directly in the storm's path and those in outlying (outflow) areas.

For those laboratories in the immediate pathway, labs need to do more than simply shut down and evacuate.

Facing long-term outages, laboratory personnel should shut down analysers, shut down laboratory power systems, and literally unplug all equipment from the walls so that upon start-up, there is no possibility of rebound power surges damaging equipment.

Many laboratories assume that post-storm, their local electrical utility and distribution lines will remain intact, which is often not the case, especially when wind, flooding, and lightning are factors.

Upon powering back up, an instrumentation-grade LPS power protection system re-generates the electrical power entering sensitive instrumentation into a perfect AC sine wave so that a sub-standard power environment will not cause damage.

Laboratories in outlying areas also face potential, and significant, damage from thunderstorms, high winds, downed power lines and/or flooding.

These labs should implement supplemental power protection and back-up to protect sensitive instrumentation from power sags, surges, and outages.

Even switching transient glitches as short as 30-miliseconds can result in costly damage to instrumentation, loss of irreplaceable samples and data, as well as significant lost productive time.

Based on this year's forecast, federal, state, and local officials at the National Hurricane Center urge that the millions living and working in hurricane-prone areas to be prepared.

The NOAA is predicting that for the 2006 north Atlantic hurricane season, the USA will experience 13 to 16 named storms, with eight to ten becoming hurricanes, of which four to six could become 'major' hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher.

Additionally, the NOAA reports that there are 40,000 thunderstorms a day worldwide, with 14.6 million occurrences annually.

The majority of the USA will experience 50 thunderstorm days annually, with increased occurrences in the gulf coast, Texas, and the mid-west.

"Understanding what we are up against weather-wise this year is startling," explains Ray Hecker, vice president, Franek Technologies.

"Looking at data and the predictions, it quickly becomes apparent that laboratories around the globe need to be prepared for weather-related occurrences to preserve not only their investment in instrumentation, but also the integrity of the research being conducted".

"We are pleased to be able to support NOAA's hurricane research efforts and offer recommendations, based on our 30+ years of experience, to laboratories facing imminent storms in the future".

Franek Technologies specializes in providing laboratory productivity/protection systems (LPS/UPS) for analytical, diagnostics, forensic, life-science, pharmaceutical and biotechnology instrumentation systems applications.

Its certified uninterruptible battery backup power sources for laboratory and instrumentation applications protect over $3billion in laboratory assets worldwide.

The company's power engineers have developed LPS/UPS products for over 1500 instrumentation applications, from more than 80 manufacturers, to meet US government power requirements.

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