jayflash
Flashlight Enthusiast
\"My\" Outage Makes Newspaper
I provide and co-ordinate maintenance for four, regional, US Banks. The largest and oldest one takes most of my time and is where my office is located. The nine floor building was erected in 1924 with additions in the 1960's. It has an interesting mix of machinery, systems and alterations added over its many years. The elevators still have their huge, ancient,open-frame controllers, filled with clacking choruses of contactors and hot, wire wound, resistors.
Last week as I was doing paperwork in my lower level office, we had our first power outage in two years. When the lights didn't come right back on, I pulled a Nuwai .5 from my shirt pocket before I got up from the desk as it was COMPLETELY dark. With that light on, I took a ProPoly 4AA of its wall hook and gave it to the HVAC vendor who happend to be in my office at the time. Next I deployed my E2e and we headed to the boiler room where the emergency lighting generator is located. After a minute delay it fired up and the emergency lights came on. These lights are located fairly distant from each other but give enough light for minimal navigation.
Then we headed through the dim boiler room to the far end where the large, three phase, diesel generator is located, to see that it was running correctly. Having bright lights was helpful in navigating through the dim, narrow passages, with their hot, steam filled pipes. Remember this is an old building not constructed with the safety systems and open areas found in modern equipment rooms. It's easy to get beaned by low slung pipes.
I sent the HVAC tech back to the office with my ProPoly to check on the building systems computer while I headed out to my truck to get a SuperSabre and a UK Vectra outfitted with NiCds and 4.5 & 18 watt lamps. No longer needing the E2e I reholstered it and used the longer running, rechargeable, Vectra on 4.5 watts and the SuperSabre cliped to my belt, just incase. Back inside I chanced an elevator ride to the top floor (they're on emergency power) and toured through each floor on the way down to check on the tennants.
Finally I had time to get some phone calls in and find out that about 24 other buildings in the area were also without power. After about two hours a crew of four from the power company arrived at the bank, having restored power to the other buildings but not ours. It turned out that one of the high voltage cables in our switchgear had perforated and shorted to ground. This knocked out the substation in the area. The linemen didn't see the section of faulty cable in the switchgear until I shined the tight beam of the SuperSabre along the length of the cables inside the cabinet, which is located outside, in bright surroundings.
These guys had only one Light Box so I accompanied them to to the lower level of the building where we have our own triplet of large transformers in a vault - without emergency lights. The bare 12.5kV wires are within reach and there are trip hazzards - a possible fatal combination without good lighting. The Vectra on 18 watts insured a safe trip to the bank's other vault.
Determining no other problems existed with the transformers, they gave the go ahead to replace the blown HV fuses, outside.
This one experience probably used up my lifetime alotment of flashaholic excitement. Although five of my lights were pressed into use I still had a "2MCP" John Light back in my truck.
Now some of the people at the bank that got 20/$20 keychain lights from me, last Christmas, know how useful they can be.
I provide and co-ordinate maintenance for four, regional, US Banks. The largest and oldest one takes most of my time and is where my office is located. The nine floor building was erected in 1924 with additions in the 1960's. It has an interesting mix of machinery, systems and alterations added over its many years. The elevators still have their huge, ancient,open-frame controllers, filled with clacking choruses of contactors and hot, wire wound, resistors.
Last week as I was doing paperwork in my lower level office, we had our first power outage in two years. When the lights didn't come right back on, I pulled a Nuwai .5 from my shirt pocket before I got up from the desk as it was COMPLETELY dark. With that light on, I took a ProPoly 4AA of its wall hook and gave it to the HVAC vendor who happend to be in my office at the time. Next I deployed my E2e and we headed to the boiler room where the emergency lighting generator is located. After a minute delay it fired up and the emergency lights came on. These lights are located fairly distant from each other but give enough light for minimal navigation.
Then we headed through the dim boiler room to the far end where the large, three phase, diesel generator is located, to see that it was running correctly. Having bright lights was helpful in navigating through the dim, narrow passages, with their hot, steam filled pipes. Remember this is an old building not constructed with the safety systems and open areas found in modern equipment rooms. It's easy to get beaned by low slung pipes.
I sent the HVAC tech back to the office with my ProPoly to check on the building systems computer while I headed out to my truck to get a SuperSabre and a UK Vectra outfitted with NiCds and 4.5 & 18 watt lamps. No longer needing the E2e I reholstered it and used the longer running, rechargeable, Vectra on 4.5 watts and the SuperSabre cliped to my belt, just incase. Back inside I chanced an elevator ride to the top floor (they're on emergency power) and toured through each floor on the way down to check on the tennants.
Finally I had time to get some phone calls in and find out that about 24 other buildings in the area were also without power. After about two hours a crew of four from the power company arrived at the bank, having restored power to the other buildings but not ours. It turned out that one of the high voltage cables in our switchgear had perforated and shorted to ground. This knocked out the substation in the area. The linemen didn't see the section of faulty cable in the switchgear until I shined the tight beam of the SuperSabre along the length of the cables inside the cabinet, which is located outside, in bright surroundings.
These guys had only one Light Box so I accompanied them to to the lower level of the building where we have our own triplet of large transformers in a vault - without emergency lights. The bare 12.5kV wires are within reach and there are trip hazzards - a possible fatal combination without good lighting. The Vectra on 18 watts insured a safe trip to the bank's other vault.
Determining no other problems existed with the transformers, they gave the go ahead to replace the blown HV fuses, outside.
This one experience probably used up my lifetime alotment of flashaholic excitement. Although five of my lights were pressed into use I still had a "2MCP" John Light back in my truck.
Now some of the people at the bank that got 20/$20 keychain lights from me, last Christmas, know how useful they can be.