A power outage in Colorado caused U.S. official time be 4.8 microseconds off (npr.org)

But what was the SLA?

If they don't know what time it is, how can it be 4.8 us off?

For reference, that's 4720 light feet or 1440 light metres.

If the official time drifts by 4.8 microseconds, should I worry about my VHS timer recordings?

> and a backup generator subsequently failed,

I wonder what the failure was. I also wonder if they load tested the unit(s) to ensure full operation at some recent point. That's how you find weird things like fuel fouling that obstructs pipes and filters which under no-load testing scenarios would not be an issue but could potentially stall under load.