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Report on the Emergency Communications Center power outage and generator failure.
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Presented By: Larry Shifflett, Fire Chief.
Recommendation and Review
At approximately 5:52 p.m. on August 5, 2014, a tree limb fell across a power line on Crawford Avenue causing a power outage in the southeast part of the City. This power outage also affected the Emergency Communications Center (ECC) located in the Public Safety Building (PSB). The PSB has an 800 kw generator that is used to provide emergency power to the building anytime the power supply is interrupted. However, when this event occurred, the generator failed to start. This generator is covered by a 24 hour a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, service contract. Scheduled service was performed on the generator just two weeks prior to August 5. The generator is started and allowed to run for about 45 minutes each week, and is run under a load once a month. When the generator failed to start, a service technician was called and arrived at the ECC approximately 30 minutes later. After troubleshooting the problem for about approximately 30 minutes, the technician got the generator to start and run properly. This was within minutes of the time that regular power was returned to the building. The technician returned the next day to recheck the generator to make sure everything was working properly. The technician replaced the voltage regulator on the generator, but is unable to determine the exact reason that the generator failed to start. Attached is a full report along with the service report from the service technician.