A circuit breaker that “boiled” made some taxpayers’ tempers simmer Thursday when it shut down telephones and computers at the Clallam County Courthouse.
The electricity breaker failed about 1 p.m. and terminated telephone calls — some of which were angry inquiries to Assessor Linda Owings-Rosenburgh’s office about revaluations of their homes.
Some of the taxpayers called the Peninsula Daily News to complain that they couldn’t get through to her.
“This was not orchestrated by the assessor,” Owings-Rosenburgh laughed when she learned about the snafu. “Please emphasize that.”
Even after telephone service was restored about 3 p.m., the assessor’s computer program that lets her check property values remained frozen.
Circuit breaker ‘boiled’
County Administrator Dan Engelbertson said a 100-amp circuit breaker “just boiled.” Because the power was interrupted inside the building, the courthouse generator did not automatically come on like it does when external power fails.
Phones would return to normal throughout the remainder of Thursday, but some computer programs might not be restored until today, Engelbertson said.
The “hard crash” caused some work in progress — such as word-processing documents — to be lost.
In the meantime, Owings-Rosenburgh was left holding a dead phone, so to speak.
