An old electrical line finally giving out was the cause of a power outage that affected Marysville High School and forced the cancelation of a home football game Sept. 28.
Mike White, director of business services for Marysville Schools, said there was a power outage that affected the high school. He also said a few areas near it, as well as the Early College High School (ECHS), briefly lost power. However, this was the surge that broke the electrical line’s back, as one of its lines finally gave way after more than 45 years of service.
“We know something happened to that line between the Amrine Mill Road junction box and the junction box behind the receiving center,” White said. “For (the line) being that old, you don’t know.”
White said the school has been working with Settle Muter Electric (SME) and Dayton Power and Light (DP&L) to get the electrical line to the high school repaired Sunday. He said after factoring for repairs and dealing with subcontractors, SME gave a cost estimate between $125,000 and $175,000.
“From everybody who we talked to, as far as the contractors we used, they said ‘we can’t believe you got that much time out of it,’” White said. “It paid for itself.”
White said after the ECHS building was renovated four to five years ago, DP&L recommended that line should be replaced. That would have made sure this latest outage didn’t kill the ECHS’s line.
However, the line that died Sept. 28 was connected from the high school’s stadium, and that line was installed in 1972. He said since the high school was built in 1990, there wasn’t a power line there, so the line connected from the back side of the stadium.
“That whole string of buildings, between Amrine Mill Road and the high school is on one major line,” White said. “That main line we replaced was put in through the stadium originally.”
White said there weren’t considerations made to replace the line because “we really didn’t think about it at the time.” He said there was still the concern about a potential line break, so there were conduits already installed to route and protect the electrical lines.
He said the repair had to be delayed because a cause for the power going out had to be investigated. Since the line is considered high voltage, he said the school district had to find a high-voltage company to do the job.
A temporary fix had to be done so the school could at least function while the stadium line could be replaced.
On Sept. 29 and 30, Buckeye Electric installed three heavy-duty electrical generators, one for each of the building’s transformers, to pick up the brunt of the electrical needs of the building. They were assessed by SME to make sure they could give the appropriate amount of power. However, equipment with high electrical demands like HVAC units and stadium lights were not powered.
He said maintenance was done so the building could run on generators “and not burn anything up” for the next school week.
“If you don’t have the right power, you’re going to burn something up in there,” White said. “We sure as heck don’t want to burn up a chiller or other kitchen equipment like that.”
Due to the power outage, the football game for Sept. 28 was moved to Sept. 29. The school had to get a private generator for the game, and could only operate the sound system and scoreboard.
SME was able to run the new line Oct. 6. After meter tests were performed, the line was connected Sunday. White said the school was running on power from the electrical lines by the afternoon.
White said the only problem that arose was that lunch on Oct. 1 was delayed for half an hour. Besides that, he said “everything went very well.”
He said the school will continue to work on what the final bill will entail. Though he has an estimate from SME for its labor, he said he needs to assess how much private and school labor was used, what insurance factors had to be considered and other costs.
Marysville Superintendent Diane Mankins said the high school lost “very little instructional time” durin\g the outage Sept. 28.
“Operations were certainly different because we didn’t have power, but then the next week, it was pretty much business as usual,” Mankins said. “Mike and the maintenance department did a great job getting things in place over the weekend and being able to hold school as usual as possible.”