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Power outage exposes backup-power gaps; county plans electrical review, AED purchases and dispatch training
Summary
A downtown power outage that left courtrooms and the courthouse without power prompted county staff to recommend an electrical engineer for a power plan. Staff also requested $8,000 from opioid-settlement funds to buy four AEDs and outlined a dispatcher training timeline with a July rollout.
County officials told commissioners a recent downtown power outage highlighted the lack of backup power at critical facilities and outlined next steps to address gaps.
Speaker 6 said a power outage on May 5 lasted just under two hours, affecting four courtrooms and other operations and requiring elevator rescues. The sheriff temporarily closed courthouse access during the outage. Staff said the courthouse, jail and commission offices currently lack backup power for sustained outages and recommended engaging an electrical engineer to produce a power plan; the jail was identified as the most complex facility because of its multiple systems.
Separately, Speaker 6 said staff closed out a COVID grant administered through NACOG that had funded mobile vaccination trailers and hospital equipment and that related paperwork for the chairman’s signature was included in the packet.
On preparedness spending, Speaker 6 requested using $8,000 of opioid settlement funds to purchase four automated external defibrillators (AEDs) for EMA vehicles. He said the AED models proposed match those used by the ambulance service and volunteer fire departments so pads and replacement parts would be interchangeable.
Speaker 6 also gave a timeline for a new dispatch system: responder training would begin in late May, followed by a two-week bug-fix period, three weeks of dispatcher training, another short bug-fix window, a soft roll-in the first week of July and full service by July 15.
No formal commission vote on contracting an electrical engineer, authorizing AED purchases or final dispatch procurement was recorded during the meeting.
