The day Murphy visited

You know Murphy's law? "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong".

Everyone knew what was coming. It was one of those stifling, unsettled spring days. A tornado would touch down somewhere today, no question.

Near quitting time, the Midwestern sky grew ugly. Swirling, dark purple clouds pulsed with ominous energy.

The funnel touch down on the mill's hydro plant roof, ripping the old slate off its steel supports.

The ensuing drenching downpour, through the hole in the roof, was so heavy that the buss bars in the bank of switch gear below exploded, literally blowing apart. Globs of copper spattered everywhere.

Fortunately, no person was exposed to either calamity, mostly due to the location. The hydro plant was a restricted, 'authorized personnel only' area and while there was traffic, it was minimal with no full time attendance in the area.

The resulting electrical surge was so intense throughout the mill's electrical distribution systems that none of the circuit protection could adequately respond. Even the stress cones on the step-down transformer sitting out in the maintenance employees parking lot which was the tie to the local utility failed, instantaneously.

No lights, no radios, no power, no air, no water, no anything.

Emergency conditions prevailed throughout the mill, an integrated pulp and paper mill with five machines.

Paper machines with crumpled wires.

Chlorine fumes.

Recovery boiler smelt bed.

Overflowing vats and tanks.

Sewers backing up.

The mill was out of control and nightfall was approaching.

Damage control/emergency action headquarters was established immediately in the maintenance office where the mill’s radio base station and outside telephone tie was located. Emergency generators were set up to power the radio and phone system.

A frantic search for additional portable generators throughout the immediate area was undertaken.

Heads were counted. Buildings searched, top to bottom, until everyone was accounted for. Again, no injuries in spite of near disaster conditions.

No outside power was available, nor would there be until the tie connection with the local utility could be remade. The internal supply was not available until the melted buss bars were replaced.

Work teams were assigned. Some were sent home, to rest, in anticipation of an enduring and tiring shutdown. Work priorities were established. A schedule defined.

While the operating crews had their hands full, not much could be done without light, air and water. No clean up. Most were sent home. Some kept for fire watch. Some to help maintenance set up auxiliary lighting.

The first two tasks of maintenance were to re-establish the tie line connection by replacing the stress cones on the tie transformer. 62.5 KV to 15 KV. The cones on the low end blew completely apart.

One older electrician, who had made many cones in the past was sent to take on this assignment, with help from younger assistants, who were expected to observe and learn.

A group of electricians began the job of tearing out the scorched and damaged switch gear to get at the buss' running in the rear of the switch gear cabinets. Several switch gear were severely damaged, but the mill and a sister mill upstream had some spares.

Some equipment would have to wait for start-up until rebuilt switch gear could be acquired elsewhere.

The buss bars looked like thick metal plate that had been burned through by a blowtorch. Piles of now cooled, once molten slag hung from the ends and dripped into piles on the concrete floor. Splattered pieces of once molten metal could be found everywhere.

All through the night and the next day the crews worked, replaced by rested workers, who were, in turn, replaced again.

Well into the first night, the buss was cleared and the mill ready for the 'juice to be turned on'.

Work on the stress cones and clean-up of the line-up of switch gear was still in progress, that was the least critical of a critical situation.

In the meanwhile, it was expected that the hydro generators could be brought on line as soon as the bank of switch gear was cleared for power.

The mill had several hydro-generators and three steam turbine-generators. The mill was a net producer of excess electricity when under normal operation, thus the reason for the utility tie connection.

As soon as the hydro generators would start-up they would provide enough electrical power to build steam and then the rest of the mill could start, regardless of the utility tie-line.

Murphy's artistry exposed itself when it was discovered that the station batteries, used for backup supply for excitation on the hydro generators, were no good.

A PM gone bad, it was later discovered during the what can we do to prevent a re-occurrence examination, commonly known as root cause analysis.

Furious, frustrated, finger-pointing eventually gave way to reason and clear thoughts. Forget the batteries, and why they don't work, what can be used to provide excitation? In a mill with nothing operating. No power. No supply. The worst possible scenario.

"Wait, #4 Hydro is self-excited," the electrical engineer remembered, "we'll just start that up."

Murphy wasn't finished with his totality of desperation.

The Number 4 Hydro, a self-excited unit, had lost its residual magnetism and if that unit was expected to bring up the rest of the units is was going to need an outside source to provide 'field flashing.'

Murphy had met his match...a desire, an overwhelming, focused emphasis on finding a means to best the set circumstances that had created this will-sapping incident.

In this case good luck and an opportunistic thought created the way.

After explaining the need to the group of assembled mill and corporate personnel, the corporate Chief Electrical Engineer began to think of all the traditional possibilities.

One of the mill’s electrician’s having listened to the explanation asked, “Would a portable power source do the trick”?

“Yes, if we had one,” the corporate Electrical Engineer responded. “Got something in mind Al?”

“Sam, didn’t you just buy a portable welding machine?” Al inquired. The mill had just purchased a gasoline engine powered arc-welder to use at some of the remote locations for which the mill was responsible.

“Al, you are genius, of course, Don, let’s go take a look”. Sam, the maintenance man, and current maintenance manager, started out the door heading for the shop dragging the corporate electrical engineer along.

It was, indeed, capable of providing the necessary power to flash the generator's field the engineer pointed out upon examination of the practically brand new unit stored in the machine shops roll repair area, out of the weather, so to speak.

In no time it was moved and hooked up out in the hydro plant, near #4’s generator.

#4 hydro-generator came on line, and soon another, followed quickly by another. Slowly, but progressively, as is the nature of a start-up, the mill returned to normal. Finally, even, the connections on the utility tie transformer were remade and everyone sighed a big relief.

A lot was learned from this failure.

In some ways the mill was well prepared, in others, poorly, and these were duly noted.

If you had suggested that such circumstances could actually happen, prior to this incident, the general response around that mill would have been..."could never happen here."

Murphy, of Murphy’s Law, has never acknowledged that places exist where 's--t don't happen'.

That particular mill's responsiveness was, in a large part, due to its unique circumstances.

It was located in the heart of town, much like many older, northern mills. This simply means that any 'unusual' mill occurrence is felt by everyone in the immediate surroundings.

The town's emergency services are basically made up of mill workers, thus immediate response of any emergency equipment (radios, lighting, fire protection, first-aid, and so forth) was immediately available.

The power company, to which the mill sold excess power, is a local cooperative and was especially responsive.

The company's corporate headquarters is located just minutes away, providing additional resources, such as engineering expertise in planning and management decisions, plus 'extra' human resources (‘bodies’, to use a mill term) for job site supervision and to act as 'gofers'. Additionally, the 'sister' mill is also within minutes and that mill's resources were put on call for whatever might be necessary.

The sense of urgency that prevailed, shared by all concerned throughout the emergency, was a huge factor in the success of getting the mill up and running. Luck played a large part in no one being injured. The downside, of course, was the irreplaceable loss of production and equipment. But then, this truly was an ‘act of nature’.

How is your emergency preparedness?

Will a near catastrophic, totally unexpected, certainly unplanned failure evaluate it? Or does your plan and appropriate action cover the unexpected?

Have you had a run though, a simple...'how would I react if'...exercise?

Murphy's not choosy, one mill's as good as another.