At Thomas Weisel Partners, an investment bank and brokerage in downtown San Francisco, a 25-foot electric generator is part of the bank's arsenal against the power crisis gripping the Golden State. Few companies are taking a chance a bad situation won't get worse when demand for power peaks this summer. Contingency plans include securing fueling contracts for generators, enacting energy conservation measures, readying evacuation plans and schemes to move work to other branches if needed. Like many banks and brokerages, the Pacific Exchange has its own generators and its data center and trading floors can be kept running as long as it gets the fuel. But it will have no impact on our trading operations.
Many companies are now in the midst of testing their contingency plans.
Thomas Weisel is testing at least once a week its power generating system, which includes a battery that immediately supplies uninterrupted power if electricity is cut without notice, guarding vital data on computer screens until the generator takes over. Beyond that, we've made provisions with fueling companies to refuel the system as a priority fueling contract. He said his company can deal with an extended outage. The company's emergency plan, whether in an earthquake or outage, calls for evacuating people, leaving only the most critical operations working and transferring some brokering or banking business to its New York office. The company also has conservation measures, said Alan Markow, vice president of marketing and communications.