Power outage at City Hall; generator powering building

A major electrical problem hit offices at the Laurel Municipal Center on Friday, Aug. 19, that caused the building's power to go out and its generator to kick in automatically. According to city spokesman James Collins, the problem, initially thought to involve wiring on outside poles, stemmed from an underground transformer in front of the city hall office building.

"It only affect city hall and the buildng in the back," said Collins. "It affected the electricity, air conditioning and telephones at city hall and the building out back, but the generator kicked in automatically, so we had power through the generator and were fine."

But that wasn't the case for businesses located in the building that's connected to the back of the municipal center. Carl Powell, who moved his Magnificent Body fitness and wellness center to 8101 Sandy Spring Road last month said his offices had no air conditioning or lights when he arrived Friday morning.

"I had seven people show up for a class at 9 (a.m.), but fortunately I have windows, so I opened them up and we worked out with no lights," Powell said. "The elevator wasn't working and an 82-year-old client took the stairs to my second-floor studio for her class. I carried her back down the steps after the workout because the power didn't come back on until noon."

Although they were inconvenienced by the power outage, Powell said most people in his building seemed to have taken the loss of power in stride.

"A lot of people came outside and were talking in the parking lot. It was a chance for me to meet other tenants in the building, which was good," Powell said. "It was all in a day's work."

The back offices' problem may have been solved by noon, but Collins said the transformer was still being worked on Friday evening and that the municipal center's offices were still being powered by the generator.

"It's a BG&E problem and they're still working on it," Collins said.