[CentOS] CentOS 6.4 login after reboot after apcupsd shutdown - shows POWER FAILURE

Hi list,
just putting a new server through its automatic shutdown triggered by 
the UPS / apcupsd.
All worked faultlessly, including powering up when power came back on to 
the UPS.

So then I go to log in and get "POWER FAILURE" followed by 
"Authentication failure" - this is on the console

via SSH I just get "POWER FAILURE" and the ssh connection drops.

So I guess the, log everyone out and stop further logins instruction is 
still lurking around somewhere.

How do I regain control of my server??
Does this mean I need to boot with a rescue disk and edit some file 
somewhere??

How do I prevent this re-occurring, after a perfect shutdown and 
restart, only to get stymied here.

Google has lots of help for dealing with various corruptions due to 
power failure - not the case here, the POST, grub, init restart
all look just fine.
TIA