Port unplugged: Hurricane put Charleston ship terminal on backup power
Without much notice, a Port of Charleston shipping terminal went off the grid for a few months.
Not to lower the light bill. And certainly not on purpose.
The cord-cutting culprit was Hurricane Matthew, which wreaked a fair bit of havoc on the elaborate but vulnerable electrical system that powers the State Ports Authority’s Columbus Street Terminal.
This is the same working-waterfront property along East Bay Street that ships out most of the vehicles made at BMW’s Upstate plant, the top automobile exporter in the nation.
The site also houses a U.S. Customs office, a computer hub, warehouses and other operations.
“This whole network we’re talking about is the lifeblood of the terminal,” said Steve Kemp, the SPA’s senior director of terminal strategy, facilities operations and maintenance.
The 155-acre Columbus Street cargo yard never lost complete power during the months-long storm recovery, an unexpected ordeal that required the removal and replacement of roughly eight miles of heavy-duty wiring.
“Forty-four thousand linear feet,” Kemp told the SPA board during a briefing Wednesday.
As Matthew crashed ashore near McClellanville in early October, its storm surge covered the Columbus Street port with as much as 30 inches of water.
Afterward, officials were mildly surprised when they flipped the lights back on. The electrical setup at the nearly 60-year-old terminal, a survivor of far more ferocious hurricanes, appeared to be no worse for the wear, aside from what Kemp called “one or two small fuse items.”
“I think almost everything came back on,” he said.
The first signs of trouble flared up two to three weeks later, culminating in a “cascading” sequence of circuit failures that would require a top-to-bottom overhaul.
“It just kept progressing and getting worse,” Kemp said.
Crews uncovered the root cause soon after they started inspecting the maze of wiring encased beneath the wharf. On Wednesday, Kemp showed the SPA board an image of a piece of damaged electrical line that workers had removed. Water was dribbling out from one end – salt water.
“As that salt water was able to get inside the insulation, it started creating that corrosion,” Kemp said.
Through the holidays, SPA employees worked with contractors from Metro Electric, GEI and Epic Engineering. They swapped out the wiring and other equipment to get the terminal back in ship shape. It wouldn’t happen overnight, in part because many of the replacement parts weren’t immediately available, Kemp said.
In interim, nine “very large” mobile generators were brought in to keep the lights on at the terminal, said Chuck Gillette, facilities maintenance manager for the ports authority. The rented power units were onsite for “close to three months,” he said.
It was just enough time that the terminal’s electric supplier took notice, concerned that it had been generating “zero revenue” from Columbus Street, according to Kemp.
“We had calls from SCE&G asking, ‘What’s going on?'” he said.
The Cayce-based utility can rest assured. The last batch of hurricane fixes at Columbus Street were tested and approved this month. The SPA expects that the nearly $1.17 million repair bill will be covered in full by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Remarkably, the unseen electrical damage at Columbus Street didn’t prevent BMW and other shippers from using the terminal, according to port officials, including CEO Jim Newsome.
“We’re proud of that,” Kemp said.
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Source: Post and Courier
