Volume 11
Number 2
Fall 2002

The Med Inn Flood: Team Efforts at Their Best

On the evening of Tuesday, July 9, 2002, Hospital and Plant Maintenance groups received an emergency call from the Med Inn at University Hospital; no power. A flood in the basement had caused the electrical substation to fail. Med Inn guests were evacuated to local hotels. Several Maintenance & Utility staff responded immediately to evaluate the site and assess equipment damage. Immediate repairs, clean-up efforts and emergency power generation were initiated on site overnight and service restoration began the next morning. Just some of the details and responders are included in this condensed team summary that restored the building’s power in expedited fashion!

Hospital Maintenance staff handled initial response after receiving a momentary low water pressure alarm. Jim Galloway, HVAC Mechanic, responded and found a 2-inch water pipe fitting had burst, flooding the utility sub-basement. He radioed for help, with assistance coming from mechanics Steve Smith, Dana Cornett, and Ray Poniatowski. After the first responders had closed Med Inn’s two mains, Plumber Bruce Platte arrived on site and capped the remaining residual flow. The evening crew and midnight mechanics Andrew Robinson and Stan Brown con-tinued to work into the night, clearing the sub-basement of standing water. Almost simultaneously with the first alarm, electrical grounding alarms triggered duty calls for the On-Call High Voltage Electrician, John Gyorki, and Hospital Electrician, Russ Hough. Hospital supervisors, Karl Altenbernt and Jim Lingenfelter, directed site crews and initiated drying, systems inspections, and generator power for recovery operations before sunrise.

Dennis Darling, Consultant Engineer for the Hospital, confirmed the load in Med Inn did not warrant two substations and recommended abandoning the 300 KW substation transformer. With that information, all secondary loads were transferred to one 500 KW emergency generator in the Med Inn courtyard. Wally Stellberger coordinated the generator hook up with Mike Moore and Lou Way. Ed Adams and Joe Burman ran temporary conductors to existing feeder panels thus activating the needed pump and fan power panels. Hospital Maintenance was able to confirm the status of pumps, motors and circuitry for the various building systems, and expedite replacement components as necessary.

By early Wednesday morning, the High Voltage crew had decided to use a sal-vaged 500 KW substation, recently removed from the Neuroscience Building before its demolition. Fortunately, this equipment was a close match and could be used to replace one of the damaged substations in the room. Lou Way, Mike Moore and Pat Managhan disconnected the 300 KW unit from the system and prepared the replacement substation for a new primary feed. Dennis Darling provided the design scheme used to hook up the system changes that would put the building back on-line.

All day Wednesday, the High Voltage and Low Voltage crews worked together to dismantle the 500 KW substation. By 4:00 PM, they were ready for the Movers who brought the Lull lift truck and the replace-ment substation in tow. Lou Polinsky ran the Lull lift to raise the damaged unit from the basement of Med Inn through a very narrow hatch. The new equipment was lowered through the same small opening. This was not a lightweight job – the sub-station was the equivalent of a mid-size car and weighed about 7000 pounds. The Movers, Richard Hurst, John Menke and Ryan Wilson, under the direction of Tom Heller, were excellent.

Incredibly, less than 24 hours after the initial emergency call, the Movers had removed the old unit and set the new unit in place. Lou Way and Mike Moore of High Voltage and many of the Hospital Maintenance crew pushed and pulled with all the movers to make this happen.

By Thursday AM, the electric shop crews began reinstalling the new wiring. Otis Rodgers, Jeff Risner, Dave Lammers, Dan Stenquist, Fred Miller, Bill Pawlowski, Bill Jeffrey and Gerald Pepin worked efficiently to install the primary and secondary and wire pulling. Mike Moore and Lou Way secured the abandoned 300 KW primary wiring and buss work in the gear as well as rebuilding and testing all of the water damaged draw out breakers; Pat Managhan and Bill Singer provided the high voltage splice in the manhole and Joel Morrison provided the testing of the reclaimed Neuroscience substation.

The crews continued to work at a feverish pace through Friday and were able to complete almost all of the secondary and primary work. By the end of the day, they tested the gear including the new primary cable. The crews worked late Friday night into Saturday morning to energize the substation and all of the circuits. Through everyone’s dedication and hard work, Med Inn was on normal power by Saturday morning. On Sunday, July 14th, the secondary voltage crew came in to complete the panel directories and clean up the area.

While there were many reasons why the Med Inn repair was so successful, the main reason was the team effort – High Voltage helped Moving & Trucking, Low Voltage helped High Voltage and the Hospital staff helped everyone. Frank Wooten and Mark Paola worked behind the scenes to make sure all of the needed materials were available and delivered to the site. Wally Stellberger coordinated the fuel deliveries for the emergency generator, thus ensuring uninterrupted emergency power. Hospital Staff and Plant Staff worked side by side throughout this time. Russ Hough played a large role in the success of this project especially from an electrical safety stand-point. All Hospital Electric Shop and Zone staff responded at the scene. Without Joe Mahler and his crew, we would still be looking for replacement pumps and motors.

The professionals of Plant Operations handled every aspect of this job. Few projects of this nature have gone better or been accomplished more safely. It’s a credit to all participating supervisors and their crews. Management has nominated each person involved in the project for the Silver Arrow Award in recognition of the exemplary effort and ultimately, the team-work everyone put forth to get this job done.

~Jim Almashy and Lowell Hanson
Facilities Maintenance