Edwards Fire Alarm

Lightening causes major problems at museum

After a possible lightening strike Tuesday evening, the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History is still open for business, but some major issues will need to be solved in coming days.

Matt Edwards, executive director of the museum, said that around 6 p.m. on Tuesday he was at a local business and heard the strike that temporarily shut off the computer system at that business. He then got a call from the museum’s alarm company that the alarm had been set off and police officers had been dispatched to the building. He said then he got another call, which is unusual. By the time he got to the museum, he was greeted by several patrol cars.

“We quickly determined that it was a result of the lightening strike. I went to reset the alarm system and it wouldn’t reset,” said Edwards.

Two separate areas of the museum’s motion sensors were blown and the fire alarm was completely destroyed.

When Edwards came to work on Wednesday morning and pushed the button on the elevator to get to his second story office, he noticed that it was completed “dead.”

A technician was called in to work on the elevator on Wednesday, but more work will have to be done to get it working again.

He said the museum had several visitors on Wednesday and guests were told at the front desk that the elevator was not working.

“We’ve had a good steady flow of visitors. They have been very accommodating with it. It’s a challenge. It’s a big facility, and it’s a lot of stairs to climb if you want to see the entire museum,” said Edwards.

In addition to the alarm system, the lightening strike also fried the Internet system and his computer no longer works. Since the museum is a non-profit organization, Edwards said, he was using an antiquated computer and hopes that someone from the community might donate a computer to replace the one that was lost.

Edwards said the museum had been struck before two to three years ago.

“It’s not surprising when you work in the tallest building downtown. I think by the nature of that fact, it makes the museum a target in that respect. This has happened several times over the last eight or 10 years,” said Edwards. “This one was definitely a surprise.”

Most of the damage at the museum is covered by insurance, although there is a $1,000 deductible.

“This is certainly an unintended expense that we are going to incur, but the upside is that our insurance will cover a portion of the damages. We don’t know what the final total is going to be on that, we are waiting on additional visits from service technicians,” said Edwards. “We are trying to get the repairs done as quickly and as cost effectively as possible.

OLD! Edwards Fire Alarm Heat Detector and Standard Circle Pull ...

My elementary and Intermediate schools also had these but they were also branded Simplex. Which makes sense because these systems were installed around the same time ~early 1970s. Sadly most of these have been torn out for the photoelectric/ electronic/ piezo/ strobe systems- you can’t beat the classics though! We actually have a building on my campus that has non-ADA compliant Edwards single 12″ bells without strobes which is odd to see now adays.- Thanks for watching!

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