New generator shrugs off power outages
<p>Strate Line Roofing & Rigging’s crane inches a 250-kilowatt generator into place at the Bonner County Administration Building. A crew from Fogg Electric is on the ground to assist with the installation. (Photo by KEITH KINNAIRD)</p>
SANDPOINT — The Bonner County Administration Building won’t miss a beat when the power goes out.
The county took delivery of a 250-kilowatt Caterpillar diesel generator to supply emergency power in the event of an outage.
The $250,000 generator replaces a 60-kilowatt generator that powered the county’s Emergency Operations Center, which is used for search-and-rescue missions and disaster response.
“It wasn’t large enough to power the entire building,” said Bob Howard, director of Bonner County Emergency Management.
The old generator is being shifted to the Bonner County Courthouse, where it will be used to sustain the county’s information technology infrastructure, public safety communications and some of the facility’s utilities when an outage strikes.
The courthouse used to have a small generator when it housed the Bonner County Jail until the mid-1990s. But it hasn’t had one since then, Howard said.
The new generator was of importance to county commissioners when they adopted the county’s budget for the 2015 fiscal year last August.
“We found gaps in our emergency communications as a result of recent storms when electrical power was lost for an extended period of time,” Commission Chairman Cary Kelly said at the time.
Strate Line Crane & Rigging delivered the generator on Wednesday. The 14,000-pound generator was allowed passage over the Long Bridge, but the Idaho Transportation Department required the massive crane truck to divert to Priest River due to its weight, Howard said.
The new generator was supplied by Western States CAT and Fogg Electric of Sagle was the project’s general contractor. The bid project was a design build.
“We designed the electrical system from scratch,” Kevin Fogg.
The design build approach ensures that the generator will be able to support all of the functions at the administration building whether it’s during busy weekdays or quiet weekends.
“When we’re under emergency power, the entire building has electricity so we can continue to do business and work,” said Howard.