Cleveland airport chief: Planned upgrades will prevent outages

CLEVELAND (AP) — Efforts are under way at the Cleveland airport to prevent the type of power outage that shut the airport down a week ago, canceling dozens of flights, the airport director said.

Cleveland Hopkins International Airport intends to complete electrical upgrades by next year to keep power on during such emergencies, director Ricky Smith said in a letter sent to The Plain Dealer’s editorial board Friday.

“The airport is in the midst of a series of related initiatives that, once completed, will eliminate the possibility of an airport shutdown caused by an offsite power outage in the future,” Smith said in the letter.

The airport’s power went out last Sunday when road salt that had built up on a utility pole caused a fire in the pole, which then fell onto power lines.

The outage affected the terminal, which had limited lighting from a backup generator. The tower and airfields were operating normally, and flights were still able to land, but departing flights were canceled.

Continental, United, American, Southwest and US Air were among the airlines that canceled flights after the early morning outage.

A Continental spokeswoman said the airline made a business decision not to buy generators to keep the airline flying during an outage.

Smith’s letter contradicted statements by an airport spokeswoman earlier in the week who said the airport would risk another shutdown rather than invest millions in backup generators.

“That’s a significant amount of money that I don’t think the city is willing to invest,” spokeswoman Jackie Mayo said on Jan. 11.

A first step toward dealing the airport’s “vulnerability” will be creating a network to “redistribute power from our generators to support our airlines and vendors in the event of future outages,” Smith’s letter said.

The airport also wants to create a link between its primary power line and a secondary line south of the airport to allow the facility to switch power sources should one fail. That project will be finished next year at a cost of $4.5 million, the letter said.

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Information from: The Plain Dealer, http://www.cleveland.com