The blackout that happened in Vancouver downtown on Monday morning July 14 lasted 3 days to have everything back in order. Unfortunately, our office is among those who had no power for more than two days. It's totally a disaster. Imagining how damage could be to a business like us that heavily depends on the deadlines. We are fortunate that we got over it by renting two 3000w Honda Gas Generator, having them sitting on the patio providing the enough juice to our servers for one and half days. We are lucky because 1) we have a patio that leads to the open air close to our server room so we can have this giant machine sitting there and running in the open air; 2) the blackout didn't interrupt the telephone line so we still have our ADSL on, or there would be no point to have the generator powering on all the servers.
Looking at the bright side though, we learned and saw what the disaster or emergency situation looks like when it happens. It's such a valuable experience that we need to benefit from it, do more planning, so to be ready or at least not being panic when next one comes, even though it most likely will be something different.
The crisis is over, but the business contingency plan just begins.