Photo By David Hernandez | Personnel from the installation's Directorate of Public Works (DPW) effectively...... read more read more
FORT BUCHANAN, PUERTO RICO - Personnel from the installation's Directorate of Public Works (DPW) effectively responded to an energy emergency that left several buildings without power, April 14.
When the power failure occurred, Maria Lopez, DPW director, was in a meeting but immediately dispatched a high-voltage electrician to investigate.
"We have Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) that outline a plan for every type of emergency that might occur on the installation. The SOP includes drills to address emergencies such as power failures, earthquakes, storms, floods, and water scarcity," said Lopez.
According to Javier Moyet De León, a high-voltage electrician, a bird caused a transformer to explode by touching two live lines carrying different high voltages.
"Around 11:50 a.m., I received a call to verify the power failure. After assessing the area, we determined that a bird had been electrocuted, damaging the primary boxes and causing three fuses to fail. We replaced the damaged parts, and within approximately one hour and forty-five minutes, DPW resolved the issue and restored power to the area," said Moyet.
Antonel Sayers Maldonado, a heavy equipment operator and support electrician, was part of the team that addressed an electric generator in one of the affected buildings, which had failed to start automatically.
"The generator had a faulty code, so we manually adjusted the settings to fix it, ensuring it worked properly to provide power to the building until the other damages were addressed," said Sayers.
For Staff Sgt. Jason Sánchez, chief paralegal non-commissioned officer at the 1st Mission Support Command, the response was swift, emphasizing the indispensable work that DPW does for the installation.
"DPW responded quickly; they arrived and assessed the situation in less than five minutes. We appreciate the professionalism and rapid response from DPW regarding service issues and repair requests," said Sánchez.
For information about the Directorate of Public Works at Fort Buchanan, contact (787) 707-3971 or visit the DPW website: https://home.army.mil/buchanan/about/Garrison/directorate-public-works.
DPW's quick response demonstrate essential elements of the installation's energy resilience and the posture of the DPW civilian workforce in handling energy emergencies on-post.
With an annual budget of over $500 million, Fort Buchanan serves a military community of approximately 15,000 active-duty, Reserve, National Guard, Marine Corps Reserve, and Navy Reserve personnel. Fort Buchanan's mission is to serve as a readiness enhancement platform and facilitate the deployment of military personnel anywhere at any time.
| Date Taken: | 04.17.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.21.2025 17:27 |
| Story ID: | 495804 |
| Location: | PR |
| Web Views: | 12 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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