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September 12, 2005
Now I Know Why the Telephone Works
Today's power outage raised a question I couldn't answer: why do our phone lines (some of them) work during a power outage? Leave it to our beloved KPCC listeners to come up with the answer. Engineer Todd Thompson sent us an email while we were on the air today and explained it all. He says:
"Normal phone lines that plug into the wall in your home (the ones that do not have a power plug that plugs into the wall) are run off of batteries that are stored in the phone company's central office. Power outages do not affect these phone lines. For this reason it's good to have at least one of these types of phones in your home (i.e. a phone that is not a wireless phone nor a phone that has any AC plug of any type) as these phones may be used during power outages."
It's the best part about "Talk of the City" -- I learn something new every day!
Posted by Kitty Felde at 3:44 PM
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I was hoping to find information as to what one should have in emergency provisions. I thought I heard you say yesterday that it could be found here on Off-Ramp
Posted by: Sandi Collett on September 13, 2005 2:42 PM
