In an effort to return power to OSU more quickly, the OSU Physical Plant unintentionally increased the number of buildings without power Wednesday.
At 4 a.m., the Physical Plant was notified that electricity in Scott-Parker-Wentz, Stout Hall, Iba Hall, Patchin-Jones, the Seretean Wellness Center, a track storage building and the Ag Engineering building was out.
Power was restored to all areas of campus at 4 p.m. after Physical Plant workers replaced the master circuit breaker in Wentz Hall.
The replacement breaker cost about $8,000.
Rick Krysiak, the Physical Plant director, said the initial thought was that a blown transformer at the OG&E power station at Lincoln Street and Hall of Fame Avenue had caused the outage.
OG&E workers were going to take about two hours to arrive at the scene, Krysiak said.
Physical Plant workers decided to switch the power that would normally be sent through that transformer to another feeder, Krysiak said.
If this solution worked, the power would be restored, he said.
However, because of a bad ground cable unable to handle the load, the power then went out in the Student Union, the Math Sciences building and Life Science East.
“It was a fluke,” Krysiak said.
Cables in concrete tubes run underneath campus and transfer electricity.
Some of the cables are between 30 years and 40 years old, Krysiak said. The age of cable that caused the outage was unknown.
“We’re to a point where some cables are approaching their life cycles,” he said.
Up to about 1,800 feet of cable might need to be replaced between Hall of Fame Avenue and Farm Road, Krysiak said.
The Physical Plant has been working on a plan to replace the underground cable throughout campus.
Krysiak said he wasn’t sure about what the cost would be to replace the cables.
Loading ...
All Articles