Fire Department Responds To Calls At Nashville

Primary School And NCHS Following Power Outage

Firefighter disembark from the truck at Nashville Primary School after smoke smell was reported there. The Nashville Fire Protection District had responded to NCHS earlier in the day for the same reason.

By Alex Haglund

A power transformer located behind the Nashville Post Office blew on Sunday morning. In addition to causing power outages and trouble throughout the east end of Nashville, responders from the Nashville Fire Protection District responded to calls at both Nashville Community High School and Nashville Primary School related to the outage.

The transformer blew at about 9:45, said Hohlt, and responding to that was the first of the department’s calls for the day.

“That’s where this whole thing originated,” said Hohlt.

Hohlt said that the cause of the later calls was a smoke smell at the schools.

After the power went down, emergency power kicked on and blower motors for ventilation at the school don’t handle the single phase generator power well.

“The three-phase motors don’t run right and they burnt up. They’re meant to run on three-phase and they only had one phase working,” said Hohlt. “They basically burned themselves out.”

Hohlt said that there was not damage besides the furnace motors themselves. “There wasn’t any fire or anything, they just got hot and it stinks and it smells the place up.”

The call regarding NCHS came in at five minutes past noon. The call at the primary school was at 2:45 p.m.

“They were both the exact same thing,” Hohlt said.