On October 29th, 2011 the northeastern United States experienced a recording breaking early season snow fall that delivered several feet of snow across the northeastern states including New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont. The storm’s damage was extensive, but the most catastrophic damage occurred to utility and telecommunication services throughout the region. Over 3 million individuals experienced power failure as a result of this storm. Many critical infrastructures were required to operate under emergency power resources for days. Most facilities escaped this record snowfall unscathed as emergency systems operated as intended. With January rapidly coming to a close most facility engineers believe they can relax as the worst of the winter weather is now behind us, but in fact we know disaster preparedness is more important now than ever thanks to historical data.
According to the Northeast States Emergency Consortium; January, February and March typically produce the most severe winter storms of the season. Historical data shows the most recent blizzards and severe snowstorms in the Northeast occurred in March of 1888, January of 1978, March of 1993, February of 1996, March of 2001 and February of 2006. Each of these late season storms paralyzed the Northeast with power outages and supply shortages. These storms can be costly to homes and businesses, but devastating to hospitals, data centers or any mission critical facility. One-hundred percent disaster preparedness is the key to mitigating downtime and equipment failure. Disaster preparedness includes meeting compliancy, operational equipment and stored fuel to operate emergency equipment. When asked if their facilities are disaster prepared, most facility engineers will answer, “Yes, my generator technician said we are good to go and I took a load of fuel last week.” To facility experts this is only an 18 word answer that can be translated into “No, we are not prepared.” Any facility without a fuel management program in place has a potential liability looming in their tanks. 
Stored diesel fuel is the most important asset to any facility relying on diesel generators for emergency power. The stored fuel is the lifeblood to the emergency generators. ASTM quality stored diesel fuel will operate any generator, but no generator will operate on contaminated stored diesel fuel. It is not uncommon for any facility to store over a quarter-million dollars of diesel fuel at any one time. This fuel must be managed to slow and prevent the degradation process which begins 28 day after initial storage. An all-encompassing fuel management program consists of independent laboratory testing, state of the art fuel filtration, coalescing water separation, chemical treatment, compliancy inspections, chain of custody fuel programs and fuel quality trending through documentation. A credible fuel management expert should be able to provide you all of these items as a turnkey solution to fuel management.
BE PREPARED - CONTACT PATRIOT CLEAN FUEL TODAY!
