Mentor Buys Backup Generator For Senior Center

The new winter season officially begins Dec. 22, and that means we'll probably get a few storms before the season finally ends in March.

Occasionally, winter storms can cause power outages that can last for days.

If that happens, the city of Mentor will be prepared.

Mentor City Council recently authorized an expenditure of $75,238 to install an emergency backup generator for the to double as a shelter for Mentor residents who may become displaced by an extended power outage.

"About a year or so ago, we had a particularly large storm....and it was anticipated we would have significant power outages," said Mentor City Manager Ken Filipiak. "We designated the Municipal Center as a primary shelter. But we discussed at that time the need to have a facility to contain people for longer periods of time. The senior center is fully equipped to be able to do that, but it did not have added back up generating capacity."

The diesel-powered generator will be supplied and installed by A.J. Misseri Electric of Mentor.

The generator will power 80 percent of the building including its kitchen and the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. Installing a generator that would have provided power to the entire building would have driven up the cost to about $450,000.

Because the city anticipates that the generator will only be used a handful of times over the years, Filipiak said it didn't make sense to power the entire building.