The Tamaqua Area School District will be evaluating its schools’ antiquated electrical systems and developing a plan to upgrade them following an electrical failure at the high school this year.

Superintendent Ray Kinder told the school board Tuesday that the district needs to plan for upgrades to prevent schools, particularly the high school, from having to close possibly for months.

“If something goes wrong with this equipment, we can’t say, ‘Hey, overnight us a part,’ ” he said. “This is something that could take six, eight or 10 months in order to get it.”

In March, an electrical failure at the high school necessitated an early dismissal due to the risk of an arc flash, or an electrical explosion, when resetting the breakers, Kinder said.

The risk was low — about 5% with a cold reset — meaning with all the known electrical uses turned off, but there was still a risk, said Dan Meeko of Meeko Electric, who is the district’s electrician.

If they had tried to reset the system with everything energized, the explosion risk was 85% to 90%, he told the school board Tuesday night.

Meeko explained that there was no real history of maintenance on the system or exercising of breakers in the nearly 60-year-old high school, and the generators also did not kick in, signaling another problem, he said.

“From what I understand, nothing has been done here,” Meeko said. “No breakers have been exercised, and that’s very important to exercise them, because they’ve been stuck in one position for 50, 60 years.

“This is why this could have been very catastrophic.”

The district did take immediate action on items that Meeko recommended to do at the time but still needs to come up with a plan to start upgrading the outdated electrical systems, Kinder said.

Meeko said that the high school has 5,000-amp service, but PPL no longer supports that size, and he recommended doing load measurements during peak use this fall to see what size service and switchgear they need.

They also discussed searching for replacement parts, which would likely be refurbished, or have been sitting on a shelf forever, Meeko said. The high school system is a GE, and those company representatives laugh when he calls for “this antique stuff,” Meeko said.

There are also issues with building codes and minimum and maximum circuit capacity that is now permitted, as opposed to when the school was built, he said.

Meeko said that he just did work at another facility that cost about $30,000, when asked about an estimate cost by board President Larry Wittig. Meeko said that additional work could also be needed, if there are compatibility issues with new and old parts.

The administration will be coming up with a preliminary plan to address the aging electrical systems in the next two months and would be looking to address the problems starting next summer, Kinder said.

These electrical upgrades could be addressed through an Energy Service Company, or ESCO, project, such as the one currently underway, or a new one, he said.