Edison glitch affects 2-way safety radios

3/31/2005

Toledo police and fire departments had problems with some of their radios yesterday because of a situation with Toledo Edison, but they were able to use portable radios instead.

The problems were noticed about 4:15 p.m., about the same time protective devices at Toledo Edison's substation on Water Street in downtown Toledo sensed something wasn't right and made an automatic switch to another power source, Chuck Krueger, a spokesman for the utility, said.

During the switch, lights blinked for less than a second. There were no outages, but the switch probably affected customers in the downtown's central business district. "Customers who saw it, only should have seen a blink. But different equipment in different buildings may have responded differently," Mr. Krueger said.

He said crews were at the substation yesterday afternoon trying to determine why the switch occurred.