Power Plant Control Room Operator and the Life of Pi
Favorites Post #32
Originally posted November 14, 2015
Whenever I walked into the Control Room at the coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma and saw Jim Cave manning the helm, I couldn’t help but smile. I would do the same thing when Gene Day was standing there, but for a different reason. Jim just seemed to make everyone feel at ease. There is something special about his personality that rubs everyone the right way.
Jim worked for the company the first summer in 1979 when I was working as a summer help in the maintenance shop. I really didn’t know him until he became a control room operator and I was in the electric shop. He was always one of the brighter bulbs in the box.
When I first met Jim Cave, the first thing that came to mind was that he reminds me of a News reporter. He looks like someone that you would think would be telling you the daily news on TV. He has that likable face that you would trust to tell you the news each day. Everyone wanted to have their picture taken with Jim because he automatically brightened up the photograph. Thanks to Jim’s Facebook page, I have some pictures to show you.
Chuck Crabtree, Bill Epperson and Jim Cave (from left to right)
Actually, I think all of the pictures of operators that I have used in my posts over the years have come from Jim Cave’s Facebook photos. You can see from the picture above that Jim Cave seems to stand out as someone who might be a reporter on the nightly news.
Before I tell you about how Jim Cave has his own story pertaining to the Life of Pi, let me show you a couple of more photos of Operators who couldn’t resist posing with Jim Cave:
Eddie Hickman and Jim Cave
Jim Cave and Bill Hoffman
Yipes. Notice how comfortable Jim is standing between Gene Day and Joe Gallahar? Joe. Is that a Mandolin?
You can see that no matter the situation, Jim is always smiling. I can’t think of any time that I saw Jim that he wasn’t smiling a genuine smile.
Now that I have embarrassed Gene Day by showing him wearing short shorts (which was the full intent of this entire post. The rest about Jim Cave is just to put it in some sort of context), I will begin the actual story…
A new computer was installed one day that was called a VAX system. Instead of being a large mainframe computer in cabinets, this one sat out in the middle of the floor.
a VAX server
This allowed the control room to monitor readings from most of the power plant systems right there on a computer monitor. This was a new thing at the time. A few years after it was installed, a new program was installed on a computer on the counter behind the Control Room operator’s desk. The software was called PI.
OSIsoft software called PI
As a side note: This software was being used by Koch Industry to control oil pipelines across the country. I’ll tell you how I know below.
When a program like this is first installed, it isn’t of much use. The reason is that in order to monitor everything, the screens have to be setup. You can see by the screenshots above that each graph, icon and connecting line has to be defined and setup in order to show you a full picture of what is happening.
If a lot of effort is put into building the screens, then this application not only becomes a great benefit to the control room operators, it also benefits the entire operation of the plant.
We had the same situation with SAP. We had installed SAP in 1997 at the Electric Company, but the real benefit comes when an effort is made up front to put in all the expert data to make it useful. While Ray Eberle and I were working to put the expert data into SAP, this new PI system was installed in the Control Room. In order to make it useful, screens needed to be built.
Jim Cave with Allen Moore standing in the control room
Notice the alarm panels are still there in the picture in 2005.
Some operators weren’t too keen on the computer since they had been staring at these alarm panels all their adult life, and they were just in tune with the power plant as they could be. Paper recorders, gauges that you might have to tap every now and then to take an accurate reading… colored red, yellow, blue and red lights. Red Level gauges, Counters, Knobs to turn, Switches to toggle. Buttons to push. All of these things gave the operator a physical connection to the power plant system. Who needs a computer?
Jim Cave saw the benefit right away. He took out the Pi Manual and began reading it. He learned how to create new screens and add components. Then he began the work of giving “Life to Pi”.
Each time Jim added a new system to Pi, the operators saw the benefit of using this tool more and more (like Allen Moore).
In 2000, Jim Cave had built a complete set of screens, releasing the Power of PI upon the Control Room Operators making their jobs easier and giving them much more insight into the operation of the plant that they never would have dreamed 5 years earlier. (except for Bill Rivers who had predicted this day 17 years earlier when no one would believe him).
Jim Cave’s Shift Supervisor, Gary Wright wanted to recognize Jim Cave for the tremendous effort he put forth to build the PI system into every Power Plant Operator’s dream. So, he went to Bill Green the Plant Manager and told him that he would like to do something special for Jim to recognize all the effort he put into the Pi system.
A young picture of Gary Wright in the front row with Glasses and red hair. Oh, and Gene Day in the Orange Shirt… finally wearing some decent pants.
Bill replied to Gary by asking if Jim did this while he was on the job, or did he come in during his own time to work on it. Gary replied that Jim had done this while still performing his job of Control Room operator through his own initiative. It wasn’t part of his regular job. Bill clarified, “But this work was done while Jim was on the clock?” “Yes”, Gary answered. “Then Jim was just doing his job”, Bill replied.
Bill Green
At this same time, I was having a conflict of my own that I was trying to work through. I will go into more detail in a later post, but here it is in a nutshell….
I had been going to the university to get a degree called “Management Information Systems” or MIS from the business college at Oklahoma State University. I had been applying for jobs in the IT department in our company, but for reasons I will discuss later, I was not allowed to move to the IT department, even when I had only one semester left before graduating with the degree.
My problem was that I was being offered jobs from various companies when I graduated in May. Boeing in Wichita even gave me a job offer and wanted me to leave school and to work for them on the spot for having a computer and an electrical background to work on military jets, (which sounded real cool). The electric company had been paying 100% of my tuition and fees and 75% of the cost of the books. So, my education had been paid by the company. I told Boeing that above all, I wanted to finish my degree before I began my career in IT.
I felt as if I owed the electric company my allegiance and that I would stay with them, and that is why I kept applying for jobs within the company. I felt that way until the day I heard this story about Gary Wright trying to recognize Jim Cave for his extra effort.
When I heard Bill’s response was, “He was just doing his job…”, it suddenly hit me…. The company paying for my tuition was one of my benefits. I didn’t owe the company anything in return for that. I had already given them what was due. I had been their employee and had done my job. I no longer felt the need to “pay back” the company by staying. I had already paid them with my service. I actually remember saying that out loud to Ray Eberle. “The company paying for my education is my benefit.”
This was a turning point in my job search. I felt perfectly free after that to accept a job from another company. Bill’s response to Gary Wright had opened my eyes. I felt perfectly at ease accepting the job offer from Dell the following month. It’s too bad that it took snubbing Jim Cave’s extraordinary effort by the plant manager to put my understanding of my situation in the proper light.
During that time, I had a job offer that I had turned down from Koch Industry in Wichita because they didn’t offer me as much pay as some of the other job offers I had received. A month later they called me back and asked me to go for another interview in a different department.
When I showed up for the interview, it was with the SCADA department. SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. That is what the electric company called the system that opens and closes breakers remotely. Koch Industries uses the same type of system to control the pipelines across the country from their one location in Wichita.
After the interview, they showed me around the office. When we walked into the lab, one person showed me the computer system they were using to control all the pipelines, and lo and behold…. it was the PI system. The same one that Jim Cave had learned in the control room at our Power Plant. They offered me a job in that department as well for a little more.
I thought to myself that if I accepted the job with Koch, then I would ask Jim to teach me what he had learned about the Pi software. This would come in real handy. It turned out that the offer from Dell was even better than Koch, which was my second choice if I hadn’t accepted the job at Dell.
Things have changed at the plant since the picture in 2005. I believe it was in 2006 that the alarm panels were removed from the control room and everything was put on the computers. The control room operators no longer have to stand in front of panels of lights and gauges and knobs and buttons and switches. It is all viewed on computer screens.
Here is a picture of Jim sitting in front of some of those computer screens…
Jim Cave manning the Control Room Computers
I see eleven computer monitors on the counter behind the old control panel and we can’t even see the other half of the counter. It looks like Jim built so many screens they just kept having to add more and more monitors to show them all. — Oh. I suspect that Jim didn’t create all these screens, but he did help acclimate the Control Room operators to using computers so that when the evolution to a completely computerized system did arrive, they were ready for it.
Great work Jim Cave! Thank you for all you have done for the Electric Company in Oklahoma. You have made a lasting difference that will carry forward to the next generation of Control Room Operators. I don’t just mean by giving Life to PI. Your positive attitude in times of stress to the times of boredom have blessed everyone that ever knew you.
I for one am grateful to have met and worked with a True Power Plant Man such as yourself.
Hot Night on the Power Plant Precipitator
Scott Hubbard and I weren’t too sure why we had been called out that night when we met at the Bowling Alley on Washington Street at two o’clock in the morning in Stillwater Oklahoma to drive out to the coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma. Something about a fire on the top of the precipitator.
I was glad that Scott was driving instead of me when I climbed into his pickup and he began the 20 mile journey up Highway 177. I wasn’t quite awake yet from the phone call at 1:45 am telling me that there was a fire on the Unit 1 precipitator roof and they were calling Scott and I out to put it out. I figured if there was a fire it should be put out long before the 45 minutes it takes me and Scott to arrive at the plant.
We had all been trained to fight fires this size, so it didn’t make sense why we had to go do this instead of the operators.
This is an actual picture of the OSU Fire Service training plant workers to fight fires.
My head was still swimming from the lack of sleep when we arrived at the plant, and headed to the Control Room to find out more about the fire we were supposed to fight. The Shift Supervisor explained that there was an oil fire under one of the high voltage transformers next to some high voltage cables, and the operators that were on duty didn’t feel comfortable climbing under the transformer stands to try and put it out because of high voltage cable tray that ran alongside the fire (ok, now it made sense. Electricity was involved. Electricians had to work on anything that had an electric cable attached even if it was a fire).
The size fire extinguisher you would find in your home. The ones we used were bigger
The operators had already brought a number of fire extinguishers appropriate to putting out an oil fire to the precipitator roof, and they had an SCBA (Self Contained Breathing Apparatus) waiting there as well.
Man wearing an SCBA from Google Images
Scott and I went to the Electric Shop to get a couple of pairs of asbestos gloves just in case we needed them.
Asbestos Gloves worn when putting hot bearings on a motor shaft (for instance)
When we arrived on the precipitator roof we could smell the fire smoldering right away. The operator explained that some oil soaked insulation was on fire under the transformer stand for Transformer 1G9 and that he had tried to put it out using the extinguisher, but since the transformer oil was soaked into the bricks of insulation, it didn’t seem to do any good.
The transformer stands are about 18 inches tall, so climbing under them reminded me of the time I was sandblasting the water treatment tanks and Curtis Love turned off my air (see the post: “Power Plant Safety as Interpreted by Curtis Love“). This time I had a self-contained breathing apparatus, so I was in control of my own air… only there would only be about 30 minutes of air in the tank.
After assessing the situation Scott and I decided that the only way to put the fire out was to remove the blocks of insulation that were burning. This meant that I had to lay down under the precipitator transformers and come face to face with the burning insulation and pull them out while wearing the asbestos gloves and put them in a barrel.
The plan was that we would then lower the 55 gallon barrel down to the ground and extinguish the fire by filling the barrel with water.
A barrel this size, only it was empty and the top was removed
The precipitator is on the outlet end of the boiler. The boiler exhaust blows through the precipitator and the ash in the exhaust is removed using static electricity generated by the large transformers on the precipitator roof using up to 45,000 volts of electricity. When the precipitator is on, the roof is generally a warm place to be.
When a person is laying on the insulation under a transformer, the temperature is somewhat higher as the heat is trapped in the enclosed space between two enclosures called “Coffin Houses” (how appropriate). When the insulation is soaked with burning oil, the temperature seemed to rise significantly. Luckily the insulation was not fiberglass as you may have in your attic, because I was wearing nothing but a tee shirt and jeans. So, I was not subject to the itching I would have if the insulation had been fiberglass.
I had turned the air on the SCBA without using the “Positive Pressure” setting. That meant that when I inhaled, I pulled air from the air tank, but the air didn’t apply pressure on the mask to keep out the bad air.
I did that because, this looked like it was going to be a long job and I wanted to conserve the air in the tank, and I found that on this setting I was not breathing the smoke pouring up around my face. Otherwise I would have reached down to the valve on my belt and changed the setting to positive pressure.
I kept wondering while I was lying there with my face a few inches from the smoldering blocks of insulation why I was so calm the entire time. The hot temperature had caused my sweat reflex to pour out the sweat so I was quickly drenched. I would just lay my head on the insulation as I reached into the hole I was creating and pulled a glowing brick of insulation out using the asbestos gloves.
I knew I was only half awake so I kept telling myself… “Pay attention. Work slowly. One step at a time. I tried to work like Granny would when she was digging Taters on the Beverly Hillbillies (see the video below):
In case you are not able to view the video above, try this link: “Granny Digging Taters“.
It’s funny when you’re half dreaming the various things that come to mind. I’m not sure how picking up smoldering bricks of insulation translated in my mind to Granny teaching beatniks how to pick “taters”…. but it did.
There was also something about this that reminded me of eating chocolate…. oh wait… that was probably left over from the dream I was having when the phone first rang back at the house.
For the next hour or so, I filled the barrels with the burning insulation and then lowered them down to the alleyway between Unit 1 and 2. During this time I was still groggy from the lack of sleep and the entire process seemed like a dream to me.
I remember lying on my stomach next to the burning insulation. Pulling the blocks out one at a time, layer by layer until I reached the precipitator roof underneath. I placed each block of smoldering insulation in the barrel that had been lowered down by an overhead chain-fall near me.
When the barrel was about 3/4 full, we would work the chain fall over to the motorized hoist that would lower it down to the pickup truck bed 100 feet below. When the barrel left the confines of the precipitator roof and the night air blew over the top of it, the insulation would burst into flames. By the time the barrel landed in the back of the pickup truck the flames would be lighting up the alley way.
Scott doused the flames with a hose and an extinguisher and hauled the barrel of insulation off to a hazardous waste bin while I repeated the process with the next barrel that Scott attached to the hoist.
By the time we were through I smelled like something that crawled out of a damp fireplace. My shirt and jeans were soaked with sweat and caked with pink insulation. The SCBA was out of air after using it for an hour and we were ready to go home.
The operators said they would bring the empty extinguishers back to the plant and send the SCBA off to have it recharged. We checked back in with the Shift Supervisor in the control room and told him we were heading for home.
I don’t remember which Shift Supervisor it was, though Gary Wright comes to my mind when I think about it.
Gary Wright is the red haired man in the front row with the big round glasses
I don’t remember which operator was helping us on the precipitator roof either. I would usually remember those things, but like I said, I was still dreaming during this entire process.
Normally at this time, since it was close to 3:30 in the morning, we would opt to stay over and just do some odd jobs until it was time to start work because the 6 hour rule would still require us to come back to work at the regular time (see the Post: “Power Plant Black Time and Six Hour Rule“). Scott and I decided that we both needed a good shower and if we could catch even one hour of sleep before we had to head back out to work, that would help.
So, we climbed back into Scott’s truck and headed back to Stillwater to the bowling alley where I had left my car. I don’t remember the drive home. I don’t even remember taking off my shirt and jeans in the utility room where I walked in the house and placing them in the washing machine straightaway… though that’s what I did.
I know I took a shower, but all that was just part of the same dream I had been having since the phone rang earlier that night. Usually I didn’t have trouble waking up when the phone rang in the middle of the night, but for some reason, this particular night, I never fully woke up.
Or… maybe it’s something else…. Could I have dreamed the entire thing? Maybe I never did receive that call, and we didn’t have to go out to the plant in the middle of the night to put out a fire. I mean… how crazy is that anyway? Does it make any sense?
I suppose I will have to rely on Scott Hubbard to confirm that we really did fight that fire. How about it Scott?
Scott Hubbard
As Bill Gibson asked one time…. “Is the Fact Truer than the Fiction?”
Power Plant Control Room Operator and the Life of Pi
Whenever I walked into the Control Room at the coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma and saw Jim Cave manning the helm, I couldn’t help but smile. I would do the same thing when Gene Day was standing there, but for a different reason. Jim just seemed to make everyone feel at ease. There is something special about his personality that rubs everyone the right way.
Jim worked for the company the first summer in 1979 when I was working as a summer help in the maintenance shop. I really didn’t know him until he became a control room operator and I was in the electric shop. He was always one of the brighter bulbs in the box.
When I first met Jim Cave, the first thing that came to mind was that he reminds me of a News reporter. He looks like someone that you would think would be telling you the daily news on TV. He has that likeable face that you would trust to tell you the news each day. Everyone wanted to have their picture taken with Jim because he automatically brightened up the photograph. Thanks to Jim’s Facebook page, I have some pictures to show you.
Chuck Crabtree, Bill Epperson and Jim Cave (from left to right)
Actually, I think all of the pictures of operators that I have used in my posts over the years have come from Jim Cave’s Facebook photos. You can see from the picture above that Jim Cave seems to stand out as someone who might be a reporter on the nightly news.
Before I tell you about how Jim Cave has his own story pertaining to the Life of Pi, let me show you a couple of more photos of Operators who couldn’t resist posing with Jim Cave:
Eddie Hickman and Jim Cave
Jim Cave and Bill Hoffman
Yipes. Notice how comfortable Jim is standing between Gene Day and Joe Gallahar? Joe. Is that a Mandolin?
You can see that no matter the situation, Jim is always smiling. I can’t think of any time that I saw Jim that he wasn’t smiling a genuine smile.
Now that I have embarrassed Gene Day by showing him wearing short shorts (which was the full intent of this post. The rest about Jim Cave is just to put it in some sort of context), I will begin the actual story…
A new computer was installed one day that was called a VAX system. Instead of being a large mainframe computer in cabinets, this one sat out in the middle of the floor.
a VAX server
This allowed the control room to monitor readings from most of the power plant systems right there on a computer monitor. This was a new thing at the time. A few years after it was installed, a new program was installed on a computer on the counter behind the Control Room operator’s desk. The software was called PI.
OSIsoft software called PI
As a side note: This software was being used by Koch Industry to control oil pipelines across the country. I’ll tell you how I know below.
When a program like this is first installed, it isn’t of much use. The reason is that in order to monitor everything, the screens have to be setup. You can see by the screenshots above that each graph, icon and connecting line has to be defined and setup in order to show you a full picture of what is happening.
If a lot of effort is put into building the screens, then this application not only becomes a great benefit to the control room operators, it also benefits the entire operation of the plant.
We had the same situation with SAP. We had installed SAP in 1997 at the Electric Company, but the real benefit comes when an effort is made up front to put in all the expert data to make it useful. While Ray Eberle and I were working to put the expert data into SAP, this new PI system was installed in the Control Room. In order to make it useful, screens needed to be built.
Jim Cave with Allen Moore standing in the control room
Notice the alarm panels are still there in the picture in 2005.
Some operators weren’t too keen on the computer since they had been staring at these alarm panels all their adult life, and they were just in tune with the power plant as they could be. Paper recorders, gauges that you might have to tap every now and then to take an accurate reading… colored red, yellow, blue and red lights. Red Level gauges, Counters, Knobs to turn, Switches to toggle. Buttons to push. All of these things gave the operator a physical connection to the power plant system. Who needs a computer?
Jim Cave saw the benefit right away. He took the Pi Manual out and began reading it. He learned how to create new screens and add components. Then he began the work of giving “Life to Pi”.
Each time Jim added a new system to Pi, the operators saw the benefit of using this tool more and more (like Allen Moore).
In 2000, Jim Cave had built a complete set of screens, releasing the Power of PI upon the Control Room Operators making their jobs easier and giving them much more insight into the operation of the plant that they never would have dreamed 5 years earlier. (except for Bill Rivers who had predicted this day 17 years earlier when no one would believe him).
Jim Cave’s Shift Supervisor, Gary Wright wanted to recognize Jim Cave for the tremendous effort he put forth to build the PI system into every Power Plant Operator’s dream. So, he went to Bill Green the Plant Manager and told him that he would like to do something special for Jim to recognize all the effort he put into the Pi system.
A young picture of Gary Wright in the front row with Glasses and red hair. Oh, and Gene Day in the Orange Shirt… finally wearing some decent pants.
Bill replied to Gary by asking if Jim did this while he was on the job, or did he come in during his own time to work on it. Gary replied that Jim had done this while still performing his job of Control Room operator through his own initiative. It wasn’t part of his regular job. Bill clarified, “But this work was done while Jim was on the clock?” “Yes”, Gary answered. “Then Jim was just doing his job”, Bill replied.
Bill Green
At this same time, I was having a conflict of my own that I was trying to work through. I will go into more detail in a later post, but here it is in a nutshell….
I had been going to the university to get a degree called “Management Information Systems” or MIS from the business college at Oklahoma State University. I had been applying for jobs in the IT department in our company, but for reasons I will discuss later, I was not allowed to move to the IT department, even when I had only one semester left before graduating with the degree.
My problem was that I was being offered jobs from various companies when I graduated in May. Boeing in Wichita even gave me a job offer and wanted me to leave school and to work for them on the spot for having a computer and an electrical background to work on military jets, (which sounded real cool). The electric company had been paying all of my tuition and fees and 75% of the cost of the books. So, my education had been paid by the company. I told Boeing that above all, I wanted to finish my degree before I began my career in IT.
I felt as if I owed the electric company my allegiance and that I would stay with them, and that is why I kept applying for jobs within the company. I felt that way until the day I heard this story about Gary Wright trying to recognize Jim Cave for his extra effort.
When I heard Bill’s response was, “He was just doing his job…”, it suddenly hit me…. The company paying for my tuition was one of my benefits. I didn’t owe the company anything in return for that. I had already given them what was due. I had been their employee and had done my job. I no longer felt the need to “pay back” the company by staying. I had already paid them with my service. I actually remember saying that out loud to Ray Eberle. “The company paying for my education is my benefit.”
This was a turning point in my job search. I felt perfectly free after that to accept a job from another company. Bill’s response to Gary Wright had opened my eyes. I felt perfectly at ease accepting the job offer from Dell the following month. It’s too bad that it took snubbing Jim Cave’s extraordinary effort by the plant manager to put my understanding of my situation in the proper light.
During that time, I had a job offer that I had turned down from Koch Industry in Wichita because they didn’t offer me as much pay as some of the other job offers I had received. A month later they called me back and asked me to go for another interview in a different department.
When I showed up for the interview, it was with the SCADA department. SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. That is what the electric company called the system that opens and closes breakers remotely. Koch Industries uses the same type of system to control the pipelines across the country from their one location in Wichita.
After the interview, they showed me around the office. When we walked into the lab, one person showed me the computer system they were using to control all the pipelines, and lo and behold…. it was the PI system. The same one that Jim Cave had learned in the control room at our Power Plant. They offered me a job in that department as well for a little more.
I thought to myself that if I accepted the job with Koch, then I would ask Jim to teach me what he had learned about the Pi software. This would come in real handy. It turned out that the offer from Dell was even better than Koch, which was my second choice if I hadn’t accepted the job at Dell.
Things have changed at the plant since the picture in 2005. I believe it was in 2006 that the alarm panels were removed from the control room and everything was put on the computers. The control room operators no longer have to stand in front of panels of lights and gauges and knobs and buttons and switches. It is all viewed on computer screens.
Here is a picture of Jim sitting in front of some of those computer screens…
Jim Cave manning the Control Room Computers
I see eleven computer monitors on the counter behind the old control panel and we can’t even see the other half of the counter. It looks like Jim built so many screens they just kept having to add more and more monitors to show them all. — Oh. I know that Jim didn’t create all these screens, but he did help acclimate the Control Room operators to using computers so that when the evolution to a completely computerized system did arrive, they were ready for it.
Great work Jim Cave! Thank you for all you have done for the Electric Company in Oklahoma. You have made a lasting difference that will carry forward to the next generation of Control Room Operators. I don’t just mean by giving Life to PI. Your positive attitude in times of stress to the times of boredom have blessed everyone that ever knew you.
I for one am grateful to have met and worked with a True Power Plant Man such as yourself.
Hot Night on the Power Plant Precipitator
Scott Hubbard and I weren’t too sure why we had been called out that night when we met at the Bowling Alley on Washington Street at two o’clock in the morning in Stillwater Oklahoma to drive out to the coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma. Something about a fire on the top of the precipitator.
I was glad that Scott was driving instead of me when I climbed into his pickup and he began the 20 mile journey up Highway 177. I wasn’t quite awake yet from the phone call at 1:45 am telling me that there was a fire on the Unit 1 precipitator roof and they were calling Scott and I out to put it out. I figured if there was a fire it should be put out long before the 45 minutes it takes me and Scott to arrive at the plant.
We had all been trained to fight fires this size, so it didn’t make sense why we had to go do this instead of the operators.
This is am actual picture of the OSU Fire Service training plant workers to fight fires.
My head was still swimming from the lack of sleep when we arrived at the plant, and headed to the Control Room to find out more about the fire we were supposed to fight. The Shift Supervisor explained that there was an oil fire under one of the high voltage transformers next to some high voltage cables, and the operators that were on duty didn’t feel comfortable climbing under the transformer stands to try and put it out because of high voltage cable tray that ran alongside the fire (ok, now it made sense. Electricity was involved. Electricians had to work on anything that had an electric cable attached even if it was a fire).
The size fire extinguisher you would find in your home. The ones we used were bigger
The operators had already brought a number of fire extinguishers appropriate to putting out an oil fire to the precipitator roof, and they had an SCBA (Self Contained Breating Apparatus) waiting there as well.
Man wearing an SCBA from Google Images
Scott and I went to the Electric Shop to get a couple of pairs of asbestos gloves just in case we needed them.
Asbestos Gloves worn when putting hot bearings on a motor shaft (for instance)
When we arrived on the precipitator roof we could smell the fire smoldering right away. The operator explained that some oil soaked insulation was on fire under the transformer stand for Transformer 1G9 and that he had tried to put it out using the extinguisher, but since the transformer oil was soaked into the bricks of insulation, it didn’t seem to do any good.
The transformer stands are about 18 inches tall, so climbing under them reminded me of the time I was sandblasting the water treatment tanks and Curtis Love turned off my air (see the post: “Power Plant Safety as Interpreted by Curtis Love“). This time I had a self-contained breathing apparatus, so I was in control of my own air… only there would only be about 30 minutes of air in the tank.
After assessing the situation Scott and I decided that the only way to put the fire out was to remove the blocks of insulation that were burning. This meant that I had to lay down under the precipitator transformers and come face to face with the burning insulation and pull them out while wearing the asbestos gloves and put them in a barrel.
The plan was that we would then lower the 55 gallon barrel down to the ground and extinguish the fire by filling the barrel with water.
A barrel this size, only it was empty and the top was removed
The precipitator is on the outlet end of the boiler. The boiler exhaust blows through the precipitator and the ash in the exhaust is removed using static electricity generated by the large transformers on the precipitator roof using up to 45,000 volts of electicity. When the precipitator is on, the roof is generally a warm place to be.
When a person is laying on the insulation under a transformer, the temperature is somewhat higher as the heat is trapped in the enclosed space between two enclosures called “Coffin Houses” (how appropriate). When the insulation is soaked with burning oil, the temperature seemed to rise significantly. Luckily the insulation was not fiberglass as you may have in your attic, because I was wearing nothing but a tee shirt and jeans. So, I was not subject to the itching I would have if the insulation had been fiberglass.
I had turned the air on the SCBA without using the “Postive Pressure” setting. That meant that when I inhaled, I pulled air from the air tank, but the air didn’t apply pressure on the mask to keep out the bad air.
I did that because, this looked like it was going to be a long job and I wanted to conserve the air in the tank, and I found that on this setting I was not breathing the smoke pouring up around my face. Otherwise I would have reached down to the valve on my belt and changed the setting to positive pressure.
I kept wondering while I was lying there with my face a few inches from the smoldering blocks of insulation why I was so calm the entire time. The hot temperature had caused my sweat reflex to pour out the sweat so I was quickly drenched. I would just lay my head on the insulation as I reached into the hole I was creating and pulled a glowing brick of insulation out using the asbestos gloves.
I knew I was only half awake so I kept telling myself… “Pay attention. Work slowly. One step at a time. I tried to work like Granny would when she was digging Taters on the Beverly Hillbillies (see the video below):
In case you are not able to view the video above, try this link: “Granny Digging Taters“.
It’s funny when you’re half dreaming the various things that come to mind. I’m not sure how picking up smoldering bricks of insulation translated in my mind to Granny teaching beatniks how to pick “taters”…. but it did.
There was also something about this that reminded me of eating chocolate…. oh wait… that was probably left over from the dream I was having when the phone first rang back at the house.
For the next hour or so, I filled the barrels with the burning insulation and then lowered them down to the alleyway between Unit 1 and 2. During this time I was still groggy from the lack of sleep and the entire process seemed like a dream to me.
I remember lying on my stomach next to the burning insulation. Pulling the blocks out one at a time, layer by layer until I reached the precipitator roof underneath. I placed each block of smoldering insulation in the barrel that had been lowered down by an overhead chain-fall near me.
When the barrel was about 3/4 full, we would work the chain fall over to the motorized hoist that would lower it down to the pickup truck bed 100 feet below. When the barrel left the confines of the precipitator roof and the night air blew over the top of it, the insulation would burst into flames. By the time the barrel landed in the back of the pickup truck the flames would be lighting up the alley way.
Scott doused the flames with a hose and an extinguisher and hauled the barrel of insulation off to a hazardous waste bin while I repeated the process with the next barrel that Scott attached to the hoist.
By the time we were through I smelled like something that crawled out of a damp fireplace. My shirt and jeans were soaked with sweat and caked with pink insulation. The SCBA was out of air after using it for an hour and we were ready to go home.
The operators said they would bring the empty extinguishers back to the plant and send the SCBA off to have it recharged. We checked back in with the Shift Supervisor in the control room and told him we were heading for home.
I don’t remember which Shift Supervisor it was, though Gary Wright comes to my mind when I think about it.
Gary Wright is the red haird man in the front row with the big round glasses
I don’t remember which operator was helping us on the precipitator roof either. I would usually remember those things, but like I said, I was still dreaming during this entire process.
Normally at this time, since it was close to 3:30 in the morning, we would opt to stay over and just do some odd jobs until it was time to start work because the 6 hour rule would still require us to come back to work at the regular time (see the Post: “Power Plant Black Time and Six Hour Rule“). Scott and I decided that we both needed a good shower and if we could catch even one hour of sleep before we had to head back out to work, that would help.
So, we climbed back into Scott’s truck and headed back to Stillwater to the bowling alley where I had left my car. I don’t remember the drive home. I don’t even remember taking off my shirt and jeans in the utility room where I walked in the house and placing them in the washing machine straightaway… though that’s what I did.
I know I took a shower, but all that was just part of the same dream I had been having since the phone rang earlier that night. Usually I didn’t have trouble waking up when the phone rang in the middle of the night, but for some reason, this particular night, I never fully woke up.
Or… maybe it’s something else…. Could I have dreamed the entire thing? Maybe I never did receive that call, and we didn’t have to go out to the plant in the middle of the night to put out a fire. I mean… how crazy is that anyway? Does it make any sense?
I suppose I will have to rely on Scott Hubbard to confirm that we really did fight that fire. How about it Scott?
Scott Hubbard
As Bill Gibson asked one time…. “Is the Fact Truer than the Fiction?”
Power Plant Control Room Operator and the Life of Pi
Whenever I walked into the Control Room at the coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma and saw Jim Cave manning the helm, I couldn’t help but smile. I would do the same thing when Gene Day was standing there, but for a different reason. Jim just seemed to make everyone feel at ease. There is something special about his personality that rubs everyone the right way.
Jim worked for the company the first summer in 1979 when I was working as a summer help in the maintenance shop. I really didn’t know him until he became a control room operator and I was in the electric shop. He was always one of the brighter bulbs in the box.
When I first met Jim Cave, the first thing that came to mind was that he reminds me of a News reporter. He looks like someone that you would think would be telling you the daily news on TV. He has that likeable face that you would trust to tell you the news each day. Everyone wanted to have their picture taken with Jim because he automatically brightened up the photograph. Thanks to Jim’s Facebook page, I have some pictures to show you.
Chuck Crabtree, Bill Epperson and Jim Cave (from left to right)
Actually, I think all of the pictures of operators that I have used in my posts over the years have come from Jim Cave’s Facebook photos. You can see from the picture above that Jim Cave seems to stand out as someone who might be a reporter on the nightly news.
Before I tell you about how Jim Cave has his own story pertaining to the Life of Pi, let me show you a couple of more photos of Operators who couldn’t resist posing with Jim Cave:
Eddie Hickman and Jim Cave
Jim Cave and Bill Hoffman
Yipes. Notice how comfortable Jim is standing between Gene Day and Joe Gallahar? Joe. Is that a Mandolin?
You can see that no matter the situation, Jim is always smiling. I can’t think of any time that I saw Jim that he wasn’t smiling a genuine smile.
Now that I have embarrassed Gene Day by showing him wearing short shorts (which was the full intent of this post. The rest about Jim Cave is just to put it in some sort of context), I will begin the actual story…
A new computer was installed one day that was called a VAX system. Instead of being a large mainframe computer in cabinets, this one sat out in the middle of the floor.
a VAX server
This allowed the control room to monitor readings from most of the power plant systems right there on a computer monitor. This was a new thing at the time. A few years after it was installed, a new program was installed on a computer on the counter behind the Control Room operator’s desk. The software was called PI.
OSIsoft software called PI
As a side note: This software was being used by Koch Industry to control oil pipelines across the country. I’ll tell you how I know below.
When a program like this is first installed, it isn’t of much use. The reason is that in order to monitor everything, the screens have to be setup. You can see by the screenshots above that each graph, icon and connecting line has to be defined and setup in order to show you a full picture of what is happening.
If a lot of effort is put into building the screens, then this application not only becomes a great benefit to the control room operators, it also benefits the entire operation of the plant.
We had the same situation with SAP. We had installed SAP in 1997 at the Electric Company, but the real benefit comes when an effort is made up front to put in all the expert data to make it useful. While Ray Eberle and I were working to put the expert data into SAP, this new PI system was installed in the Control Room. In order to make it useful, screens needed to be built.
Jim Cave with Allen Moore standing in the control room
Notice the alarm panels are still there in the picture in 2005.
Some operators weren’t too keen on the computer since they had been staring at these alarm panels all their adult life, and they were just in tune with the power plant as they could be. Paper recorders, gauges that you might have to tap every now and then to take an accurate reading… colored red, yellow, blue and red lights. Red Level gauges, Counters, Knobs to turn, Switches to toggle. Buttons to push. All of these things gave the operator a physical connection to the power plant system. Who needs a computer?
Jim Cave saw the benefit right away. He took the Pi Manual out and began reading it. He learned how to create new screens and add components. Then he began the work of giving “Life to Pi”.
Each time Jim added a new system to Pi, the operators saw the benefit of using this tool more and more (like Allen Moore).
In 2000, Jim Cave had built a complete set of screens, releasing the Power of PI upon the Control Room Operators making their jobs easier and giving them much more insight into the operation of the plant that they never would have dreamed 5 years earlier. (except for Bill Rivers who had predicted this day 17 years earlier when no one would believe him).
Jim Cave’s Shift Supervisor, Gary Wright wanted to recognize Jim Cave for the tremendous effort he put forth to build the PI system into every Power Plant Operator’s dream. So, he went to Bill Green the Plant Manager and told him that he would like to do something special for Jim to recognize all the effort he put into the Pi system.
A young picture of Gary Wright in the front row with Glasses and red hair. Oh, and Gene Day in the Orange Shirt… finally wearing some decent pants.
Bill replied to Gary by asking if Jim did this while he was on the job, or did he come in during his own time to work on it. Gary replied that Jim had done this while still performing his job of Control Room operator through his own initiative. It wasn’t part of his regular job. Bill clarified, “But this work was done while Jim was on the clock?” “Yes”, Gary answered. “Then Jim was just doing his job”, Bill replied.
Bill Green
At this same time, I was having a conflict of my own that I was trying to work through. I will go into more detail in a later post, but here it is in a nutshell….
I had been going to the university to get a degree called “Management Information Systems” or MIS from the business college at Oklahoma State University. I had been applying for jobs in the IT department in our company, but for reasons I will discuss later, I was not allowed to move to the IT department, even when I had only one semester left before graduating with the degree.
My problem was that I was being offered jobs from various companies when I graduated in May. Boeing in Wichita even gave me a job offer and wanted me to leave school and to work for them on the spot for having a computer and an electrical background to work on military jets, (which sounded real cool). The electric company had been paying all of my tuition and fees and 75% of the cost of the books. So, my education had been paid by the company. I told Boeing that above all, I wanted to finish my degree before I began my career in IT.
I felt as if I owed the electric company my allegiance and that I would stay with them, and that is why I kept applying for jobs within the company. I felt that way until the day I heard this story about Gary Wright trying to recognize Jim Cave for his extra effort.
When I heard Bill’s response was, “He was just doing his job…”, it suddenly hit me…. The company paying for my tuition was one of my benefits. I didn’t owe the company anything in return for that. I had already given them what was due. I had been their employee and had done my job. I no longer felt the need to “pay back” the company by staying. I had already paid them with my service. I actually remember saying that out loud to Ray Eberle. “The company paying for my education is my benefit.”
This was a turning point in my job search. I felt perfectly free after that to accept a job from another company. Bill’s response to Gary Wright had opened my eyes. I felt perfectly at ease accepting the job offer from Dell the following month. It’s too bad that it took snubbing Jim Cave’s extraordinary effort by the plant manager to put my understanding of my situation in the proper light.
During that time, I had a job offer that I had turned down from Koch Industry in Wichita because they didn’t offer me as much pay as some of the other job offers I had received. A month later they called me back and asked me to go for another interview in a different department.
When I showed up for the interview, it was with the SCADA department. SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. That is what the electric company called the system that opens and closes breakers remotely. Koch Industries uses the same type of system to control the pipelines across the country from their one location in Wichita.
After the interview, they showed me around the office. When we walked into the lab, one person showed me the computer system they were using to control all the pipelines, and lo and behold…. it was the PI system. The same one that Jim Cave had learned in the control room at our Power Plant. They offered me a job in that department as well for a little more.
I thought to myself that if I accepted the job with Koch, then I would ask Jim to teach me what he had learned about the Pi software. This would come in real handy. It turned out that the offer from Dell was even better than Koch, which was my second choice if I hadn’t accepted the job at Dell.
Things have changed at the plant since the picture in 2005. I believe it was in 2006 that the alarm panels were removed from the control room and everything was put on the computers. The control room operators no longer have to stand in front of panels of lights and gauges and knobs and buttons and switches. It is all viewed on computer screens.
Here is a picture of Jim sitting in front of some of those computer screens…
Jim Cave manning the Control Room Computers
I see eleven computer monitors on the counter behind the old control panel and we can’t even see the other half of the counter. It looks like Jim built so many screens they just kept having to add more and more monitors to show them all. — Oh. I know that Jim didn’t create all these screens, but he did help acclimate the Control Room operators to using computers so that when the evolution to a completely computerized system did arrive, they were ready for it.
Great work Jim Cave! Thank you for all you have done for the Electric Company in Oklahoma. You have made a lasting difference that will carry forward to the next generation of Control Room Operators. I don’t just mean by giving Life to PI. Your positive attitude in times of stress to the times of boredom have blessed everyone that ever knew you.
I for one am grateful to have met and worked with a True Power Plant Man such as yourself.
Power Plant Control Room Operator and the Life of Pi
Whenever I walked into the Control Room at the coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma and saw Jim Cave manning the helm, I couldn’t help but smile. I would do the same thing when Gene Day was standing there, but for a different reason. Jim just seemed to make everyone feel at ease. There is something special about his personality that rubs everyone the right way.
Jim worked for the company the first summer in 1979 when I was working as a summer help in the maintenance shop. I really didn’t know him until he became a control room operator and I was in the electric shop. He was always one of the brighter bulbs in the box.
When I first met Jim Cave, the first thing that came to mind was that he reminds me of a News reporter. He looks like someone that you would think would be telling you the daily news on TV. He has that likeable face that you would trust to tell you the news each day. Everyone wanted to have their picture taken with Jim because he automatically brightened up the photograph. Thanks to Jim’s Facebook page, I have some pictures to show you.
Chuck Crabtree, Bill Epperson and Jim Cave (from left to right)
Actually, I think all of the pictures of operators that I have used in my posts over the years have come from Jim Cave’s Facebook photos. You can see from the picture above that Jim Cave seems to stand out as someone who might be a reporter on the nightly news.
Before I tell you about how Jim Cave has his own story pertaining to the Life of Pi, let me show you a couple of more photos of Operators who couldn’t resist posing with Jim Cave:
Eddie Hickman and Jim Cave
Jim Cave and Bill Hoffman
Yipes. Notice how comfortable Jim is standing between Gene Day and Joe Gallahar? Joe. Is that a Mandolin?
You can see that no matter the situation, Jim is always smiling. I can’t think of any time that I saw Jim that he wasn’t smiling a genuine smile.
Now that I have embarrassed Gene Day by showing him wearing short shorts (which was the full intent of the is post. The rest about Jim Cave is just to put it in some sort of context), I will begin the actual story…
A new computer was installed one day that was called a VAX system. Instead of being a large mainframe computer in cabinets, this one sat out in the middle of the floor.
a VAX server
This allowed the control room to monitor readings from most of the power plant systems right there on a computer monitor. This was a new thing at the time. A few years after it was installed, a new program was installed a computer on the counter behind the Control Room operator’s desk. The software was called PI.
OSIsoft software called PI
As a side note: This software was being used by Koch Industry to control oil pipelines across the country. I’ll tell you how I know below.
When a program like this is first installed, it isn’t of much use. The reason is that in order to monitor everything, the screens have to be setup. You can see by the screenshots above that each graph, icon and connecting line has to be defined and setup in order to show you a full picture of what is happening.
If a lot of effort is put into building the screens, then this application not only becomes a great benefit to the control room operators, it also benefits the entire operation of the plant.
We had the same situation with SAP. We had installed SAP in 1997 at the Electric Company, but the real benefit comes when an effort is made up front to put in all the expert data to make it useful. While Ray Eberle and I were working to put the expert data into SAP, this new PI system was installed in the Control Room. In order to make it useful, screens needed to be built.
Jim Cave with Allen Moore standing in the control room
Notice the alarm panels are still there in the picture in 2005.
Some operators weren’t too keen on the computer since they had been staring at these alarm panels all their adult life, and they were just in tune with the power plant as they could be. Paper recorders, gauges that you might have to tap every now and then to take an accurate reading… colored red, yellow, blue and red lights. Red Level gauges, Counters, Knobs to turn, Switches to toggle. Buttons to push. All of these things gave the operator a physical connection to the power plant system. Who needs a computer?
Jim Cave saw the benefit right away. He took the Pi Manual out and began reading it. He learned how to create new screens and add components. Then he began the work of giving “Life to Pi”.
Each time Jim added a new system to Pi, the operators saw the benefit of using this tool more and more (like Allen Moore).
In 2000, Jim Cave had built a complete set of screens, releasing the Power of PI upon the Control Room Operators making their jobs easier and giving them much more insight into the operation of the plant that they never would have dreamed 5 years earlier. (except for Bill Rivers who had predicted this day 17 years earlier when no one would believe him).
Jim Cave’s Shift Supervisor, Gary Wright wanted to recognize Jim Cave for the tremendous effort he put forth to build the PI system into every Power Plant Operator’s dream. So, he went to Bill Green the Plant Manager and told him that he would like to do something special for Jim to recognize all the effort he put into the Pi system.
A young picture of Gary Wright in the front row with Glasses and red hair. Oh, and Gene Day in the Orange Shirt… finally wearing some decent pants.
Bill replied to Gary by asking if Jim did this while he was on the job, or did he come in during his own time to work on it. Gary replied that Jim had done this while still performing his job of Control Room operator through his own initiative. It wasn’t part of his regular job. Bill clarified, “But this work was done while Jim was on the clock?” “Yes”, Gary answered. “Then Jim was just doing his job”, Bill replied.
Bill Green
At this same time, I was having a conflict of my own that I was trying to work through. I will go into more detail in a later post, but here it is in a nutshell….
I had been going to the university to get a degree called “Management Information Systems” or MIS from the business college at Oklahoma State University. I had been applying for jobs in the IT department in our company, but for reasons I will discuss later, I was not allowed to move to the IT department, even when I had only one semester left before graduating with the degree.
My problem was that I was being offered jobs from various companies when I graduated in May. Boeing in Wichita even gave me a job offer and wanted me to leave school and to work for them on the spot for having a computer and an electrical background to work on military jets, (which sounded real cool). The electric company had been paying all of my tuition and fees and 75% of the cost of the books. So, my education had been paid by the company. I told Boeing that above all, I wanted to finish my degree before I began my career in IT.
I felt as if I owed the electric company my allegiance and that I would stay with them, and that is why I kept applying for jobs within the company. I felt that way until the day I heard this story about Gary Wright trying to recognize Jim Cave for his extra effort.
When I heard Bill’s response was, “He was just doing his job…”, it suddenly hit me…. The company paying for my tuition was one of my benefits. I didn’t owe the company anything in return for that. I had already given them what was due. I had been their employee and had done my job. I no longer felt the need to “pay back” the company by staying. I had already paid them with my service. I actually remember saying that out loud to Ray Eberle. “The company paying for my education is my benefit.”
This was a turning point in my job search. I felt perfectly free after that to accept a job from another company. Bill’s response to Gary Wright had opened my eyes. I felt perfectly at ease accepting the job offer from Dell the following month. It’s too bad that it took snubbing Jim Cave’s extraordinary effort by the plant manager to put my understanding of my situation in the proper light.
During that time, I had a job offer that I had turned down from Koch Industry in Wichita because they didn’t offer me as much pay as some of the other job offers I had received. A month later they called me back and asked me to go for another interview in a different department.
When I showed up for the interview, it was with the SCADA department. SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. That is what the electric company called the system that opens and closes breakers remotely. Koch Industries uses the same type of system to control the pipelines across the country from their one location in Wichita.
After the interview, they showed me around the office. When we walked into the lab, one person showed me the computer system they were using to control all the pipelines, and lo and behold…. it was the PI system. The same one that Jim Cave had learned in the control room at our Power Plant. They offered me a job in that department as well for a little more.
I thought to myself that if I accepted the job with Koch, then I would ask Jim to teach me what he had learned about the Pi software. This would come in real handy. It turned out that the offer from Dell was even better than Koch, which was my second choice if I hadn’t accepted the job at Dell.
Things have changed at the plant since the picture in 2005. I believe it was in 2006 that the alarm panels were removed from the control room and everything was put on the computers. The control room operators no longer have to stand in front of panels of lights and gauges and knobs and buttons and switches. It is all viewed on computer screens.
Here is a picture of Jim sitting in front of some of those computer screens…
Jim Cave manning the Control Room Computers
I see eleven computer monitors on the counter behind the old control panel and we can’t even see the other half of the counter. It looks like Jim built so many screens they just kept having to add more and more monitors to show them all. — Oh. I know that Jim didn’t create all these screens, but he did help acclimate the Control Room operators to using computers so that when the evolution to a completely computerized system did arrive, they were ready for it.
Great work Jim Cave! Thank you for all you have done for the Electric Company in Oklahoma. You have made a lasting difference that will carry forward to the next generation of Control Room Operators. I don’t just mean by giving Life to PI. Your positive attitude in times of stress to the times of boredom have blessed everyone that ever knew you.
I for one am grateful to have met and worked with a True Power Plant Man such as yourself.
Hot Night on the Power Plant Precipitator
Scott Hubbard and I weren’t too sure why we had been called out that night when we met at the Bowling Alley on Washington Street at two o’clock in the morning in Stillwater Oklahoma to drive out to the coal-fired Power Plant in North Central Oklahoma. Something about a fire on the top of the precipitator.
I was glad that Scott was driving instead of me when I climbed into his pickup and he began the 20 mile journey up Highway 177. I wasn’t quite awake yet from the phone call at 1:45 am telling me that there was a fire on the Unit 1 precipitator roof and they were calling Scott and I out to put it out. I figured if there was a fire it should be put out long before the 45 minutes it takes me and Scott to arrive at the plant.
We had all been trained to fight fires this size, so it didn’t make sense why we had to go do this instead of the operators.
This is am actual picture of the OSU Fire Service training plant workers to fight fires.
My head was still swimming from the lack of sleep when we arrived at the plant, and headed to the Control Room to find out more about the fire we were supposed to fight. The Shift Supervisor explained that there was an oil fire under one of the high voltage transformers next to some high voltage cables, and the operators that were on duty didn’t feel comfortable climbing under the transformer stands to try and put it out because of high voltage cable tray that ran alongside the fire (ok, now it made sense. Electricity was involved. Electricians had to work on anything that had an electric cable attached even if it was a fire).
The size fire extinguisher you would find in your home. The ones we used were bigger
The operators had already brought a number of fire extinguishers appropriate to putting out an oil fire to the precipitator roof, and they had an SCBA (Self Contained Breating Apparatus) waiting there as well.
Man wearing an SCBA from Google Images
Scott and I went to the Electric Shop to get a couple of pairs of asbestos gloves just in case we needed them.
Asbestos Gloves worn when putting hot bearings on a motor shaft (for instance)
When we arrived on the precipitator roof we could smell the fire smoldering right away. The operator explained that some oil soaked insulation was on fire under the transformer stand for Transformer 1G9 and that he had tried to put it out using the extinguisher, but since the transformer oil was soaked into the bricks of insulation, it didn’t seem to do any good.
The transformer stands are about 18 inches tall, so climbing under them reminded me of the time I was sandblasting the water treatment tanks and Curtis Love turned off my air (see the post: “Power Plant Safety as Interpreted by Curtis Love“). This time I had a self-contained breathing apparatus, so I was in control of my own air… only there would only be about 30 minutes of air in the tank.
After assessing the situation Scott and I decided that the only way to put the fire out was to remove the blocks of insulation that were burning. This meant that I had to lay down under the precipitator transformers and come face to face with the burning insulation and pull them out while wearing the asbestos gloves and put them in a barrel.
The plan was that we would then lower the 55 gallon barrel down to the ground and extinguish the fire by filling the barrel with water.
A barrel this size, only it was empty and the top was removed
The precipitator is on the outlet end of the boiler. The boiler exhaust blows through the precipitator and the ash in the exhaust is removed using static electricity generated by the large transformers on the precipitator roof using up to 45,000 volts of electicity. When the precipitator is on, the roof is generally a warm place to be.
When a person is laying on the insulation under a transformer, the temperature is somewhat higher as the heat is trapped in the enclosed space between two enclosures called “Coffin Houses” (how appropriate). When the insulation is soaked with burning oil, the temperature seemed to rise significantly. Luckily the insulation was not fiberglass as you may have in your attic, because I was wearing nothing but a tee shirt and jeans. So, I was not subject to the itching I would have if the insulation had been fiberglass.
I had turned the air on the SCBA without using the “Postive Pressure” setting. That meant that when I inhaled, I pulled air from the air tank, but the air didn’t apply pressure on the mask to keep out the bad air.
I did that because, this looked like it was going to be a long job and I wanted to conserve the air in the tank, and I found that on this setting I was not breathing the smoke pouring up around my face. Otherwise I would have reached down to the valve on my belt and changed the setting to positive pressure.
I kept wondering while I was lying there with my face a few inches from the smoldering blocks of insulation why I was so calm the entire time. The hot temperature had caused my sweat reflex to pour out the sweat so I was quickly drenched. I would just lay my head on the insulation as I reached into the hole I was creating and pulled a glowing brick of insulation out using the asbestos gloves.
I knew I was only half awake so I kept telling myself… “Pay attention. Work slowly. One step at a time. I tried to work like Granny would when she was digging Taters on the Beverly Hillbillies (see the video below at 9:30 to 11:00 into the show):
In case you are not able to view the video above, try this link: “Granny Digging Taters“.
It’s funny when you’re half dreaming the various things that come to mind. I’m not sure how picking up smoldering bricks of insulation translated in my mind to Granny teaching beatniks how to pick “taters”…. but it did.
There was also something about this that reminded me of eating chocolate…. oh wait… that was probably left over from the dream I was having when the phone first rang back at the house.
For the next hour or so, I filled the barrels with the burning insulation and then lowered them down to the alleyway between Unit 1 and 2. During this time I was still groggy from the lack of sleep and the entire process seemed like a dream to me.
I remember lying on my stomach next to the burning insulation. Pulling the blocks out one at a time, layer by layer until I reached the precipitator roof underneath. I placed each block of smoldering insulation in the barrel that had been lowered down by an overhead chain-fall near me.
When the barrel was about 3/4 full, we would work the chain fall over to the motorized hoist that would lower it down to the pickup truck bed 100 feet below. When the barrel left the confines of the precipitator roof and the night air blew over the top of it, the insulation would burst into flames. By the time the barrel landed in the back of the pickup truck the flames would be lighting up the alley way.
Scott doused the flames with a hose and an extinguisher and hauled the barrel of insulation off to a hazardous waste bin while I repeated the process with the next barrel that Scott attached to the hoist.
By the time we were through I smelled like something that crawled out of a damp fireplace. My shirt and jeans were soaked with sweat and caked with pink insulation. The SCBA was out of air after using it for an hour and we were ready to go home.
The operators said they would bring the empty extinguishers back to the plant and send the SCBA off to have it recharged. We checked back in with the Shift Supervisor in the control room and told him we were heading for home.
I don’t remember which Shift Supervisor it was, though Gary Wright comes to my mind when I think about it.
Gary Wright is the red haird man in the front row with the big round glasses
I don’t remember which operator was helping us on the precipitator roof either. I would usually remember those things, but like I said, I was still dreaming during this entire process.
Normally at this time, since it was close to 3:30 in the morning, we would opt to stay over and just do some odd jobs until it was time to start work because the 6 hour rule would still require us to come back to work at the regular time (see the Post: “Power Plant Black Time and Six Hour Rule“). Scott and I decided that we both needed a good shower and if we could catch even one hour of sleep before we had to head back out to work, that would help.
So, we climbed back into Scott’s truck and headed back to Stillwater to the bowling alley where I had left my car. I don’t remember the drive home. I don’t even remember taking off my shirt and jeans in the utility room where I walked in the house and placing them in the washing machine straightaway… though that’s what I did.
I know I took a shower, but all that was just part of the same dream I had been having since the phone rang earlier that night. Usually I didn’t have trouble waking up when the phone rang in the middle of the night, but for some reason, this particular night, I never fully woke up.
Or… maybe it’s something else…. Could I have dreamed the entire thing? Maybe I never did receive that call, and we didn’t have to go out to the plant in the middle of the night to put out a fire. I mean… how crazy is that anyway? Does it make any sense?
I suppose I will have to rely on Scott Hubbard to confirm that we really did fight that fire. How about it Scott?
Scott Hubbard
As Bill Gibson asked one time…. “Is the Fact Truer than the Fiction?”
Power Plant Men 