A Power-Cut Test Gives the Sentry Node a Baseline

The Night Watchman had long been part of the community and now operated a Sentry node. He had cleaned the node laptop a few days earlier; today the backup power needed attention. A node that stayed online in ordinary conditions offered little reassurance if its alerts disappeared during an outage.

He replaced the backup battery and ran a power-cut test, confirming that an alert still went out. He recorded a delay of three seconds for that alert. In his duty notes, he marked the figure as a result of this particular test, rather than a promise about every future outage.

The battery and alert route had passed this immediate check, and the Night Watchman had a record to compare with later tests. He planned to watch the battery during future shifts and write checks another operator could follow. The node could not depend forever on his memory of every detail.