Pure power: be careful when handling power.(Editorial)

Jeff J. Kobinsky, the facility manager of Spring Street Group in Eau Claire, WI, typifies what is good about our industry. Jeff sent me the photos on this page so that he could share with other EUN readers what he learned in the aftermath of the August 14th blackout.

I'll let Jeff take it from here:

 
   Good morning: 
 
      It is my intention that others 
   can learn from what happened 
   to my facility, and be 
   aware of the danger involved 
   with high voltage switchgear. 
   [After the blackout] My facility 
   was on back up generator 
   power to shed loads at utility 
   request and operating an 
   100% generator power. 
 
      I was in the building when 
   it suddenly went dark, without 
   any "flicker" of lights--indicating 
   major problem. 
 
      I went to the automatic 
   transfer switch to check its 
   operation and found the "key 
   from" switch blown out of the 
   cabinet. 
 
      Closer inspection showed 
   the cabinet itself was bulged 
   out and damaged, and a small 
   amount of smoke coming from 
   the cabinet. 
 
      I called the electrical contractor 
   to site to check utility 
   power and bypass the transfer 
   switch to restore power to the 
   building when it was safe to 
   do so. 

Jeff also wrote, "We have back up generator at our facility and thought we would escape any massive problems from the utility outage, but that was not the case as a power surge took out our transfer switch and we could not connect to utility or generator power without a lot of ...