ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area When it rains....

Yesterday, Thur 12/23 was supposed to be an easy day.

Myself and about 10 others make up the service dept. of a large EC we do other things too, but we are the fix it guys.

So we all go to work and get out early and meet for a Xmas party at a local restaurant, all good so far, I get home about 4PM.

I see a "Breaking News" story about a local mall without power I tell my wife it must be a slow news day.

I should have remembered one of our customers has a 90,000 sq ft grocery store there. About 5 PM my work phone is ringing, the power will be out till 5 AM and a generator is on the way I need to get to the store and hook up it up. This is not a small deal, the service is 1,600 amps at 480.

My first call is to a member here, "Capt Al" he says he can come and help me. Did I mention it was a virtual monsoon out, high winds and rain coming down in buckets?

I also call other service guys, some can not come to work they are a 'little ruff' from the Xmas party.

I get 3 more guys on the road and call the customer back, for reasons I won't go into, the customer has another EC to connect the generator. All they want from us is to make sure it is done right and to be there to restart all the stores systems.

So now I tell everyone to go back home except for Capt Al, he and I go to the store and do what we can.

Now about 9 PM my work phone goes off again, this time a very large furniture store has a 225 amp panel and breaker melting down. They need it back on line by morning.

I call Bill, one of the service guys that had already come out and gone back home and ask him to head for the furniture store.

He finds the panel and breaker unsalvageable.

We usually can get into supply houses at night but of course not tonight for some reason.

So by this time it is midnight, Bill gets our truck driver to open the shop and luckily Bill and the driver find an identical interior and breaker in our shop, used but in good shape.

In the mean time Capt Al and I finish at the grocery store and drive to the furniture store. Once there we rip out the bad parts just before Bill arrives with the new / used parts.

By a little after 2 AM the furniture store is back on line.

All I can say is I am lucky to work with a good team of men, the only one that was obligated to respond was myself, it is my week 'on call' But those that could and where asked came out in bad weather on the start of a 3 day weekend.

I am 'on call' for 3 more hours, I hope it stays quite.

Thanks for listening, Bob