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July 12, 2007

Update: Several Pastore buildings still without A.C.

Journal photo / Bill Murphy
Davey Medeiros of Warren, a worker for Lightship Group in North Kingstown, connects cables to supply power from a portable generator into Harrington Hall at the Pastore Complex this afternoon.

CRANSTON -- Eight of the 23 state government buildings that suffered disruptions in the week's second power outage at the Pastore Complex remain without air conditioning this afternoon.

When the power failure struck last night, however, backup generators kicked in instantly, so people in some instances would not have seen that much of a change, the officials said.

But some of the backup generators do not have enough power to provide all the services in the buildings. So external generators have been brought in, with two more on the way tonight, which do have the juice to reactivate air conditioning in the eight buildings.

Some of the still-affected buildings are also using dimmed lights to conserve.

At the Eleanor Slater Hospital, administration buildings and one patient building -- the Adolf Meyer building -- are among those still without air conditioning because of the failure. However, the main patient-care building is not affected.

Temperatures around Rhode Island reached into the low 80s today under sunny skies. They are predicted to drop into the mid-50s tonight and go back up into the 80s tomorrow.

On Sunday night, two underground electrical fires were to blame for the first Pastore Complex outage.

It was not an actual fire that caused the outage this time, the officials said today. There was smoke and a failure of a power line caused by a surge of current, which caused two other lines to fail, officials said at a press conference this afternoon.

Officials today would not give an estimate for when power will be fully restored, saying only that it could be a while.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney, with reports from Journal staff writer Alex Kuffner

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 5:11 PM | Permalink

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