Bids high to check electrical boxes

Monday, March 1, 2004 | 9:50 a.m.

Higher than expected bids have temporarily limited Clark County from checking all of the county's 70,000 to 100,000 electrical and utility boxes, spokesman Erik Pappa said this morning.

Workers successfully checked the 220 boxes along the Strip between Russell Road and Sahara Avenue within a few weeks after a tourist from Kentucky was electrocuted in August, and workers continue to make headway on the county's parks, Pappa said.

But the rest of the county will have to wait as officials re-evaluate the "the scope of the work to see how we can make adjustments and then put that out to bid again," Pappa said.

Officials have divided unincorporated Clark County into four geographical areas and will seek four bids to lower costs and allow the work to be done simultaneously, Pappa said.

Officials are inspecting the boxes and installing a global positioning system to better track where each box is located, Papa said. Many of the boxes in parks have been somewhat buried.

The county has checked 3,700 boxes in 25 of its 55 parks, Papa said. About 2,500 of the boxes were for irrigation.

"Very few of them have needed repair, and none of the repairs we've made have been (major), all have been minor repairs," Pappa said.

When appropriate, the metal lids to the park boxes are being replaced with a composite material, Papa said.

Rebecca Longhoffer, 39, of Louisville, Ky., was electrocuted and died after stepping on the metal plate of a street utility box at Las Vegas Boulevard South near Spring Mountain Road during a heavy thunderstorm.