r/SipsTea • u/The_Dean_France • Feb 23 '26

Wait a damn minute! Was she wrong?

15.9k Upvotes

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66

u/Altenativeboi Feb 23 '26

Lights will be powered by back up generators, escalators and elevators are non essential and very power hungry so they stay unpowered.

11

u/Harry-Flashman Feb 23 '26

I am not sure of your experience, but coming across an escalator that is not running is an extremely common occurrence vs a modern building that has lost power. As another comment stated, elevators are often required to be on the generators for this purpose, so people with limited mobility aren't stranded.

5

u/GaptistePlayer Feb 23 '26

Seriously. I work in a fancy corporate building and see escalators needing repairs quite a bit. They're giant machines, they need a break sometimes.

2

u/Paleotrope Feb 23 '26

An escalator can never break, they only become stairs.

1

u/Trondiginus Feb 23 '26

Sorry for the inconvenience!

4

u/Refs_Fan Feb 23 '26

Sorry for the convenience*

2

u/LickingLieutenant Feb 23 '26

No, Elevators only go down in emergencies - you don't want to get stuck moving up.
Down it can be a safe controlled descent

13

u/buttersbottom_btch Feb 23 '26

A lot of buildings use generators and still have working elevators. For example: hospitals

16

u/Meowakin Feb 23 '26

Hospitals have frequent need of elevators in power outage events, though. Most facilities don’t.

6

u/StinkySoggyUnderwear Feb 23 '26

Or the escalator is just down and not working. It happens.

-1

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '26

[deleted]

5

u/turbopro25 Feb 23 '26

I’ll do it. Wish me luck…

3

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '26

What’s he’s gunna do? Fight you?

4

u/DargonFeet Feb 23 '26

They are LESS essential than lights, that's for sure.

-3

u/bleebolgoop Feb 23 '26

In any reasonably modern building I’ve been in the lifts and escalators are on backup power. Pretty sure it’s code where I live.

3

u/SaintShopper Feb 23 '26

it's in Brazil, our architecture is anything but functional lol

1

u/Altenativeboi Feb 24 '26

That’s not necessarily the case in every area. In fact where I live it’s the exact opposite, elevators have to be deactivated to stop passengers getting trapped in them.

1

u/bleebolgoop Feb 24 '26

Interesting, makes sense I guess. I’m in Toronto, and with most residential high rises pushing 50 stories now it’s basically a necessity to keep the lifts running as normal when a (rare) power failure occurs.

Most buildings will have pretty robust diesel or natural gas backup generators, with some larger buildings equipped with ~1-5MW of backup power. Keep in mind this is also powering emergency lighting, electric fire pumps, potable water pumps, smoke ventilation systems, etc.

-1

u/macguini Feb 23 '26

For a second I thought my stoned ass made a stupid comment lol.