PORT ANGELES — The reopening of the William Shore Memorial Pool was delayed at least one day, from Monday to Tuesday, after an explosive short in the transformer room.
Jim Klarr, city light operations manager, said wires inside a high-voltage connector in the pool’s transformer room shorted out Friday, sparking the rubber casing surrounding the wires and causing smoke seen from outside the building.
The explosion and flash witnesses heard and saw likely came from the fuse blowing on the overhead power line, Klarr explained, a safety feature designed to prevent further electrical damage.
“It sounds like a shotgun going off,” he said.
The pool, which has been closed since May 24 for $2 million worth of renovations, was scheduled to be reopened Monday, but pool Executive Director Steve Burke said the mishap has delayed finishing the work.
“We wish we could have opened Monday, but we didn’t really have much control over this part,” Burke said.
Open Tuesday
The pool at 225 E. Fifth St. will be open its normal operating hours Tuesday from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., Burke said.
No one was injured. Power was briefly knocked out to City Hall and the Port Angeles Police Department, both located just east of the pool.
Michelle Pace, executive assistant to the superintendent of the Port Angeles School District, the administrative offices for which lie just north of the pool, said electrical power in her offices was not interrupted.
“We just heard the boom and saw the flash,” she said.
The Peninsula Communications dispatch center was operating on generator power shortly after the short, Deputy Police Chief Brian Smith said, though city electric utility workers had power restored in less than a half-hour.
Both city electric utility staff and Port Angeles firefighters rushed to the pool, with firefighters staying for about 30 minutes clearing smoke from the transformer room, Fire Chief Ken Dubuc said.
The connector was likely between 25 and 30 years old, Klarr added.
“Over time, it just decides to fail,” he said.
7,200 volts
Klarr said the connector had 7.2 kilovolts, or 7,200 volts, of electricity running through it.
For comparison, a household electrical outlet is 120 volts.
Due to the high voltage, Klarr said, only city electric utility staff have access to the transformer room where the short occurred.
“The fire department won’t even go in there without us,” Klarr said.
Burke said the pool’s reopening had to be delayed after he had to send home contractors who could not complete their work while power to the pool was shut off.
“We had some out-of-state contractors that either needed to go home or work,” Burke said.
Burke said no other pieces of pool equipment, other than the electrical connector that had to be replaced, were damaged.
“Thankfully, part of the upgrade was adding a lot of surge protection,” Burke said.
Maintenance crews were working on the plumbing system when electrical power shut off and surged back on, Burke said.
“It did one surge, then surged again, then everything became not happy,” Burke said.
The only renovation work left to do is program the pool’s computer controls, Burke said, which are not all needed for the pool to be opened.
The pool’s new boiler, which was on when the short occurred, also will be working to raise the pool’s temperature to 83 degrees, Burke added.
Burke said no special events are planned for the pool’s reopening Tuesday.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
