11 Comments

1. 

   Meredith Warshaw on October 5, 2021 at 5:25 pm

   Lots of traffic lights were out. Made for an interesting drive through Four Corners, by City Hall, then down past NNHS.

2. 

   Rick Frank on October 5, 2021 at 9:35 pm

   Moving to an all electric economy ( i.e. for heating, charging cars, etc.) will require some big infrastructure expenses.

   At my office in Newton Centre, I have 5 computers ( I’m in the software business) all connected to large Uninterruptible Power Supplies ( with current filtering) because the power flickers on and off so often. I lost a 10000.00 workstation a few years ago and learned my lesson.

3. 

   Essteess on October 6, 2021 at 1:40 pm

   I was interested to see Rick Frank mention power flickering on and off (or off and on, as the case may be): Several years ago, we had our smoke/carbon monoxide detectors hard-wired into our electrical system, and in recent weeks we’ve had occasions when they’ve gone off, even though there’s been no smoke or any other obvious cause. Each time, it only lasted several seconds before they went off.
   I understand there may be several reasons for hard-wired detectors to go off (back-up battery failure, dust in the air, humidity), but I’m wondering if pulses in our power grid might be the answer here.

4. 

   Meredith Warshaw on October 6, 2021 at 6:04 pm

   My computer’s connected to a surge protecting power strip, but my printer isn’t. Yesterday, my computer suddenly turned off for no apparent reason, with the reason becoming clear when I found out about the transformer fire. Sadly, it seems to have killed my printer/scanner.

5. 

   Rick Frank on October 6, 2021 at 10:11 pm

   If you live in Newton Centre, it would be prudent to put your home theatre and / or stereo on a filtered surge protector. You will lose your system without one.
   Your computer as well.
   We don’t have these problems in Newtonville, where I live. Newton Centre is particularly bad, hence I have all my stuff heavily protected.

6. 

   Fignewtonville on October 6, 2021 at 11:09 pm

   Rick, any thoughts as to why? I’ve noticed some more instability in Newtonville and was wondering about it.

7. 

   Meredith Warshaw on October 6, 2021 at 11:10 pm

   I’m in Newton Highlands. It hasn’t been a problem until now.

8. 

   Paul Levy on October 7, 2021 at 9:45 pm

   The Mason-Rice principal sent out this note to the school’s parents a couple of hours after this power outage:

   October 5, 2021(2:41pm)

   “Dear Mason-Rice Families,

   “This afternoon at approximately 12:45 the power went down at Mason-Rice. This was a result of a transformer fire in the area of City Hall. In a typical power outage situation, the onsite generator would restore power to the building. However, the generator malfunctioned and we were left without power for approximately one hour. We are working with our facilities department to address the functionality of our back-up generator to ensure the unit performs as expected should this type of outage occur in the future.

   “At the time the power went out, students were eating lunch in the Centre due to inclement weather. Students who were part of that lunch block transitioned to eat lunch safely in their classrooms with the windows open. Remaining lunches for the day were all held outdoors.

   “We are very proud of the quick-thinking of our staff to figure out logistics and the calm and flexibility students demonstrated throughout this unexpected event.

   “Sincerely,

   “Jake”

   —

   Tonight in comments before the Newton Democratic City Committee, Barry Bergman properly raised a concern about this failure of the emergency generator. I know from my electric power, MWRA, and hospital experience that, in general, emergency generators are 99% reliable when called upon.

   There’s really no excuse for a back-up generator failing if it’s been properly tested and maintained. School-based generators should be especially reliable given the important clients inside. If this failure had occurred during cold weather, all of those children likely would have to have been sent home because the HVAC system would have been inoperable for an uncertain period of time, and the building would quickly have gotten too cold. This equipment failure makes me wonder what standard of performance the Newton Public Schools and/or the City designs to. Does the district have a regular system for checking these things?

9. 

   Barry Bergman on October 7, 2021 at 10:16 pm

   There is a reason that the Newton Comprehensive Plan says “Repair existing infrastructure before building anew: ‘Fix it First’”. The writers of the plan recognized the problems of letting maintenance lapse. Certainly if this would happen during the winter there would be real big problems. Maintenance needs to be the first priority.

10. 

    Nathan Phillips on October 8, 2021 at 11:27 am

    Paul, that is definitely concerning and thank you for flagging it.

    We should plan deliberately as we act swiftly to address this. I would urge Newton not to automatically invest in the existing backup generator, assuming it is fossil fueled, beyond lower-cost stop-gap triage measures. The science is clear that we cannot be building new fossil fuel infrastructure anywhere, including in our schools.

    Brookline last night approved a geothermal heating system for the k-8 Driscoll School. Geothermal harvests about 5 units of thermal energy from the ground for every unit of electricity it uses to pump heat, making it intrinsically more resilient and less dependent on the grid, and able to be powered in emergencies by locally generated renewable electricity and battery storage. The system will be paid off in 8 years and save Brookline $1M every 3 years thereafter in heating costs. Newton too can plan for energy shocks at the same time it is transitioning to clean energy and clean air.

11. 

    Bruce Wang on October 8, 2021 at 3:36 pm

    Paul Levy and Barry Bergman make an excellent point here. The Ed Center is rife with incompetence as evidenced by the total lack of preparation with HVAC for return to school. Leadership matters. The next School Committee needs to hire a new Superintendent and I do not trust any candidates that a) voted to renew his contract or b) are endorsed by the person(s) that hired Fleischman and has protected him through his scandals.