Blackout Why Choate Went Dark This Thanksgiving Break
By Ashwini Kadaba ‘08
News Staff Reporter
Two power outages occurred over Thanksgiving Break on Saturday, November 25th and Sunday, November 26th due to water damage of Choate’s main power cable.
On Saturday, the power went out throughout the entire campus around 1 AM. Thomas Hinde, Project Manager and CAD Operator in Facilities, was the manager on call that night and received a call from security of the power outage on campus. Later that morning, Mr. Shanahan was notified of the situation along with Paula Welch, Director of Facilities, and Andrew Speyer, Acting Director of ITS. Both the power and the backup power were down causing the telephones and other network services to be offline.
A 13.8 kV high voltage underground cable, or loop, runs throughout campus providing electricity to all of the buildings. The large cable diverges into two smaller cables, feeder #8 and feeder #3; each provides power to half of the campus. The electricity needs of the buildings are allocated equally to the two cables.
“At least half the campus still should have had power because we split the campus in such a way, but the whole campus was out. It was a very unusual thing,” said Mrs. Welch.
This high voltage situation posed a threat to Choate’s electricians and managers. Choate contracted the problem out to McPhee Electric, an electric company based in Farmington, CT, which resolved the problem in conjunction with Choate’s staff.
Around 8 AM, electricians from the company arrived on campus and reviewed the high voltage loop around campus and systematically looked at transformers and manholes to discover and resolve the issue. However, the solution was not found immediately on Saturday. The campus’s power was then transferred to one feeder cable and that resolved the problem temporarily.
Second Shutdown
From around 1 PM Saturday afternoon to 6 AM Sunday morning, the power was back on, but it went out once again Sunday morning. The computers were still offline, but the telephone system stayed up with backup power. McPhee electricians and Choate’s tradesmen continued to look for the origin of the problem Sunday morning.
They discovered that the high voltage connection point where the two cables originate was faulty due to damage from water leakage. That point of connection shorted out and caused the whole school to lose power, said Ms. Welch.
The electric company was able to fix most of the problem using components that were available from their shop, but only one of the feeders, or circuits were fixed. Until the other feeder could be repaired, all of the buildings at Choate were placed on the one completely functioning circuit.
According to Ms. Welch, one of the main concerns during the repairs was keeping the freezers in the dining hall at proper temperatures for food storage. Luckily, the freezers retained their temperatures and none of the food was lost.
Another major concern was the amount of time it would take to fix the cable because the Wallingford Symphony Orchestra was due to play at the Chapel Sunday evening. Luckily, power returned to the entire campus by 10 AM Saturday morning and the Symphony Orchestra was able to perform without any electrical problems.
“We were very lucky that the problem was at the next manhole because we had six or seven more to search. The problem could have taken a few more hours…It also would have been more complicated if the campus had been full,” said Mr. Hinde.
After the power returned, ITS had to make a few repairs on motherboards and capacitors in computers in the Financial Offices and on the DVD players in Steele Hall.
Plan Tried
Mr. Speyer said, “It was an opportunity for the school’s disaster recovery plan to kick in. There was a Facilities piece and an ITS piece, and it all went very well.”
Mr. Hinde agreed saying, “The positive thing about this situation was that the recovery system in place works.”
Tuesday morning, there was a scheduled power outage from 5 AM to 7 AM in order to rebalance the distribution of campus power needs onto two circuits rather than one. McPhee Electric returned that morning to fix the problem completely and split the traffic.
Mr. Ford sent out an email to all students before the outage to ensure that they had alternate plans to wake up in the morning instead of electrical alarm clocks. He commented that he did not hear about any student being disciplined because of it. Students were not all that inconvenienced either.
Kate Goldmann ’08 said, “Fortunately, I have a battery-powered alarm clock, so I wasn’t greatly affected, although it was a little inconvenient because I couldn’t make coffee in my room.”
School President Jeff Rosen ’07 commented similarly, saying, “I wake up to my cell phone alarm. To be honest, I didn’t notice a big difference.”
