A power outage and a faulty generator control board disrupted Tooele County’s dispatch center, but residents never lost 911 coverage during last Thursday’s windstorm.
The Tooele County Emergency Operations Center lost power around 2:45 a.m. and a technician was onsite by 3:30 a.m. to replace the control board, according to county emergency services director Bucky Whitehouse.
The EOC has an uninterrupted power supply and generator, intended to provide seamless energy in the event of a power outage. When the faulty control board prevented the generator from firing, the uninterrupted power supply, comprised of 64 batteries, provided power for 28 minutes before it failed, Whitehouse said.
The uninterrupted power supply is only intended to bridge the three-second gap for the generator to fire up and the one-second gap when switching back to power, Whitehouse said.
While the power was down in the county’s dispatch center, 911 calls were rerouted to the Utah Valley Dispatch Special Service District, Tooele County Sheriff Paul Wimmer said Thursday. The dispatch center was back in service and receiving calls by 7:45 a.m., according to Wimmer.
Despite the outage, the county’s microwave radio system remained online so dispatchers were able to communicate with first responders who were busy with wind-related emergencies, Whitehouse said.
The generator is tested every week on Tuesdays at 11 a.m., during which it is started up and provides power to the EOC for a full hour before being shut off, Whitehouse said. There were no faults or errors when testing the generator prior to the control board failure last Thursday, he said.