Sunday was just weird. It started out weird. Well, it actually started
out kind of benign, with the usual cat wake-me-up at 5:30 am and fetching the
paper and making the coffee and Mary and I heading out to church to get things
set up for Sunday School. But then it got weird.
Right at the moment when I got inside and flicked the light switch in the
3-year olds’ room, the power went out.
It wasn’t me! I didn't do anything! It was just a bizarre coincidence.
A storm had come through earlier, with thunder and lightning, and
apparently there was a hit on a the neighborhood transformer that knocked the power half-way out. That’s important: it was only half knocked out. Not all the
way. If you know anything about transformers, there are three 'legs' on the output, and they can still operate if one ‘leg’
of the transformer is crippled. But it makes for bizarre symptoms.
Especially when part of our church is wired on one leg, and part on
another.
So, anyway, the power was out. Mary and I tried to figure out what was
going on, along with the maintenance guy and one of the deacons (the same ones
from the oven incident). Mary was the only one prepared to wander through the
darkened building: she had her iPhone as a flashlight. We adults were (as
always) stumbling around in the dark.
We looked at all the breaker panels we could find (and there are a LOT
in the building, owing to the fact that it has been sub-paneled and expanded
and superseded like crazy) but found nothing amiss. The odd thing was that
there was some power in the new auditorium, at least partially. Some lights,
some plugs. The sound system was partially working. Remember that transformer?
It appears that part of the new addition (added on actually over 12 years ago)
was wired to one leg and part of it was wired to the other. So we were getting a few of the 115-volt circuits but none of the 240-volt circuits.
Which meant no air conditioning.
The air was warming up nicely inside the building, thanks to the sun
beating down on the cloud cover and dissipating it like rain on cotton candy,
so some folks ran out and grabbed some box fans to try and keep things cool
with the few working plugs we had. And Mary and I lit some candles to take into
the bathrooms so people wouldn’t be stumbling around in the Inner Sanctums.
Then it was a mad scramble to figure out where to have our classes. We
couldn’t use any of the inner classrooms because we didn’t have flashlights or
nearly enough candles, so we packed ‘em into the rooms on the outside walls
with windows and did what we could with natural light. I got the elementary-age
kids through our normal worship, then took the older kids (3rd/4th/5th)
into the gym and did Sunday School by the entry way.
Just as we finished class, the lights came back on.
Lights! Power! Air-conditioning! We were saved!
Mostly.
The main service was able to go on, and things resumed their normal
course. People were able to have their coffee and eat the cookies we’d brought
and sing the songs and listen to the sermon through the amplified speaker
system and it was almost like a regular Sunday.
Except … we had discovered that very few of the emergency lights worked.
And we don’t have any emergency equipment (candles, flashlights, etc) ready.
And no one (apparently) understands the wiring completely in order to track
down where a problem might be coming from.
It was a good test of the Emergency Handling System, and we didn’t do
as well as we could have. So we’ll be implementing some changes. Very soon.
Because it will happen again. Some day.
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