City generators put on line  this past Wednesday night

A green light bulb glowed in the corner of the Gasconade County E-911 dispatching center this past Wednesday indicating the facility was operating on a backup generator.

911 EMPLOYEE Stephanie Helton opens a window for fresh air last Wednesday as dispatcher Sam Scharfenberg answers a 911 call which turned out to be a non-emergency as they operated under emergency power from a generator.

“Everything is working the way it is supposed to work,” said Lisa Schlottach, manager of the 911 center, just after 11 p.m. on April 29, as a heavy rain fell. “The green light tells us the generator is on and working.”

The system automatically switches on when city power goes down and switches back once power returns. Owensville’s Light and Power plant was generating electricity on three generators late Wednesday after an outage in AmerenUE’s transmission system reported at 10:22 p.m. left the entire town in the dark.

Jell Limberg, the city’s director of Public Works, said a report he received indicated Ameren had problems with a 138,000-volt line somewhere in its system. Power was also reported out in Bland, Belle, and Gerald, said Limberg and officials with the Gasconade County E-911 center in Owensville.

The county’s 911 center was operating on a propane-fueled backup generator within seconds of the outage, said Schlottach. Numerous area residents dialed “911” to ask about the power outage. County residents are reminded that non-emergency calls should be made to the center’s business phone number, 437-7770.

Limberg had lights back on in portions of the city by 11:45 p.m. and gradually adjusted output on three generators to bring the entire city on line by around 12:10 a.m. Thursday.  He remained at the power plant until service was restored by Ameren shortly before 2 a.m.

One of two indoor generators and two outdoor trailer units provided all of the city’s power during the outage. Limberg said the three units combined would burn approximately 225 gallons of diesel fuel an hour at the relatively low demand load. During a heavier load period, heavy cooling or heating weather, each unit would burn up to 108 gallons of fuel an hour. Nearly 1.5 inches of rain fell in town between April 29-30.