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Emergency management traces 9-1-1 outage to UPS/AC interaction; officials praise responders after winter storm
Summary
Greenup County emergency-management officials described a temporary 9-1-1 dispatch outage during a recent winter storm, traced the cause to an unplanned interaction between a UPS system and a building AC unit, and praised dispatchers, EMS and volunteer fire departments for response efforts.
GREENUP COUNTY, Ky. — Greenup County emergency-management and public-safety officials said a temporary power loss at the county 9-1-1 dispatch center during a recent winter storm was caused by the center’s UPS system repeatedly tripping after an air-conditioning unit pushed current back into breakers.
Garth Wyman, the county’s emergency-management director, outlined the technical problem to the fiscal court on Jan. 14. “We ended up having, 3 to 600 amps being pushed back into some of our breakers and it kept kicking our breakers,” Wyman said, describing how the UPS (uninterruptible power supply) repeatedly shut down to protect itself and prevented the automatic generator from taking over until the issue was diagnosed and the AC unit was taken off the UPS circuit.
Wyman said the county will rewire the AC unit to a different breaker so it will be powered by the generator rather than the UPS, preventing the UPS from repeatedly tripping in future storms. He also described how the dispatch center’s redundant procedures — routing calls to a neighboring county and secondary phone systems — prevented missed emergency calls while staff worked to restore normal operations.
Public-safety director Buford Harley told the court dispatchers stayed on site around the clock during the storm, sleeping on cots to maintain coverage. “Folks, let it be known that this county cannot operate without dispatchers,” Harley said. Harley and other officials praised EMS crews, volunteer fire departments and county road crews for sustained multiagency response during the storm.
Wyman and Harley also discussed the county’s use of snow-level declarations. Wyman said county officials are reviewing the language for a Level 3 declaration to avoid unintended legal exposure and to clarify guidance to the public; he noted at least one surrounding county faced lawsuits after declaring a Level 3 during a past event.
EMS leadership and ambulance operations staff reported heavy call volumes and travel miles during the period. Kevin Callahan, director of ambulance services, said med units logged roughly 204,172 miles over the year and described a newly placed reserve unit to improve coverage for the southern part of the county.
Officials credited coordinated efforts across multiple agencies for maintaining emergency services during a difficult storm period and said they will complete the technical rewiring and continue testing backup procedures.
The court accepted emergency-management, public-safety and ambulance reports during the meeting.
