power fluctuations… from outages to spikes

In my 40 years living in the Lower Mainland, I seriously do not remember getting as many power failures in one year as we have had this year.
I have been hit with 6 since August.
even with a surge protector and ups, these have permanently crashed one system and destroyed 3 hard drives.

seems that UPS with surge protection built in and a surge protection line is not enough to protect the hardware, when a transformer explodes a block away… and the power company circuit interrupt is directly behind the building I’m in.
[ they pull the switch behind here before working on the damaged line / transformer a block away, the reconnect it to restore power to the area. ]
even powered down, the last one [ friday night ] destroyed a hard drive.