MMU crews respond quickly to series of unfortunate events

Marshall Municipal Utilities (MMU) is glad last week is over as three power outages and a boil order because of a 12-inch water main break kept MMU crews busy.

General Manager Kyle Gibbs said on Friday, Aug. 24, around 8 p.m. about 50 percent of Marshall was dark for lack of power.

"Lightning struck at a very congested area outside of Miami Street Substation," he said. The lightning struck MMU's distribution feeder lines. The particular feeder pole has five to six feeder lines. The second one from the top was affected and when it gave way the heavy lines fell into additional lines and knocked them out, Gibbs said.

The distribution feeder lines interconnect the North Street Substation and Miami One Substation.

After crews worked as quickly as possible, power was restored to a majority of Marshall residents a little after 10 p.m., Gibbs said. "There were a few isolated calls as late as Saturday morning of residents without power."

The process was a little slower due to the fact crews "had a lot of live wires that had to be de-energized for safety reasons."

With the outage, Unit No. 5 at the Power Plant was down because when the distribution feeder went out the system shut down and the generator's breaker tripped off.

This unit holds the base load year-round, he said.

MMU has been designated in the past as a Reliable Public Power Provider (RP3).

When asked if the three outages were going to affect the designation for this year, Gibbs said "It certainly will play into the formula but it won't keep us from obtaining it."

The designation of an RP3 standing is calculated by the number of outages per year and the time customers are without power, he said.

The boil order the entire city of Marshall experienced over the weekend was a result of a combination of errors including the power outage, equipment and operator error.

A 12-inch main broke at the intersection of College Street and Miami Avenue, closing the interesection. The break was a complete link of 15 feet, he said.

Automobiles can now travel east and west through the intersection as well as north, but vehicles are unable to go south, he said.

Gibbs said the boil order is "extremely unusual for Marshall."

This is the first boil order for the entire city in more than 40 years, he continued.

"You cannot find anyone that ever remembers one for the entire town," he said.

If residents see a boil order in town, it is usually only for a few houses, he continued.

The break happened "concurrent just after the electrical storm," Gibbs said. With no electricity, the pumps at North Street Substation and Miami One Substation that provide water to the city were unable to maintain pressure. MMU did turn on the back-up diesel engine to help maintain the pressure to the lines.

When electricity came back on, a pump was turned on which was larger than the demand needed and the failure point in the line presumably gave out, Gibbs said.

The boil order was issued because the water pressure dropped to 10 PSI which is below the Department of Natural Resources required 20 PSI.

"DNR is really strict about what we can do with public water supply," he said. "Anything less than 20 PSI allows infiltration (of potentially contaminated water) into the pipes."

Gibbs said when power is restored operators have 100 things to do in five minutes.

When asked how they located the break, he said, "Customers and businesses call us saying there is two feet of water running down the street. We rely on the public and they do really well. We use the information given to locate the problem."

Gibbs said 20 minutes elapses from the time to the line broke until it was isolated.

MMU lost several thousands of gallons of water at the time.

MMU officials were on duty until around noon on Saturday. "We called 40 to 50 major industries such as Fitzgibbon Hospital to let them know about the boil order along with other public announcement strategies."

Contact Rachel Harper at

marshallcity@socket.net