Teamwork between local government and utilities spells safer, swifter power restoration

An East Coast electric utility manager recently shared that his organization created an online portal for local government leaders across its service territory. The goal of the portal, in part, is to request in advance of a storm (or major event) each locality’s top three priorities for restoring power. Through the portal, there is also two-way communication between the utility’s community liaison and government leaders and police and fire chiefs. The utility can also tap data from its outage management system to tell local officials which circuits, substations, pumping stations and other assets are without power and how many crews are working on restoration.

Not every locality has the technological or financial means to communicate about power restoration to the extent mentioned above. But there are a variety of ways to foster closer ties with electric utilities and their trade allies, especially before trouble strikes. The benefit is safely speeding up power restoration and shortening the tail of a storm.

For example, to help coordinate the work of damage assessment and restoration during storms, a Northeastern utility established a public safety unit as a branch of its emergency response team and incident command system (ICS). The unit liaises with local fire and police departments to make addressing blocked roads and downed wires a priority even before restoration. Here’s how it works: In the wake of a storm, police can contact their utility liaison about an emergency with a single call, text or email. The emergency might be a driver trapped in a car with a downed wire laying on the vehicle. The utility, in turn, would make this a priority-one response. A utility crew assigned to fire and rescue work would then head for the scene. With that alignment and streamlined communication, government leaders and utilities can safely expedite emergency response and ultimately power restoration.

By designating liaisons, pre-staging equipment and rehearsing scenarios and roles, each entity knows the other’s capabilities before a storm or major event. If clearing roads is the priority, the utility will know how many apparatuses the local department of public works has for the job. The electric utility can then earmark resources to accompany each apparatus and manage downed power lines that would complicate debris removal. Joint planning also allows all the entities to speak with one voice in updating the community and other stakeholders about the estimated time of restoration, or ETR. This builds trust with constituents, too, because all parties are working with the same information.

Adopting joint exercises
For a municipality, joint planning starts internally by assessing each department to ensure managers have their business continuity and emergency response plans. Once they have their plans, government managers would run drills (drawing on a utility’s past storm data related to numbers of outages, poles down, roads blocked, etc.) with their utility counterparts to make sure the plans hold up. From there, government leaders and their utilities can share their plans with private sector counterparts and run simulations.

Put in place an incident command system
Rehearsing for the worst-case scenarios is critical, but so is having a structure for directing resources. Utilities began adopting ICS in the early 2010s after major storms like Hurricanes Irene and Sandy battered the Northeast United States, and they needed to improve their response. With ICS, there is one incident commander for the utility, and the support teams are trained in specific functional areas. Objectives and deadlines are established from the outset to facilitate consistent communications internally, with the public, regulators, and local, state and federal officials, so everyone knows the extent of the issue and when they can expect power to be restored.

Even long before a storm strikes, local and county government officials can take it upon themselves to meet with a utility’s incident commander and staff. The utility IC can bring these officials in to observe and participate in a utility’s annual exercises. Establishing community partnerships between government and incident commanders before a storm is a critical opportunity to set priorities for re-energizing assets. In these meetings, government officials can add or even elevate the importance of what might be a low-visibility location like a water or sewage treatment plant.

Once government officials and utilities establish stronger relationships, the parties should be mindful of promotions and elections because these events may require introducing oneself to new members of the “government-utility team.” By keeping an eye on people who are changing roles, there is an opportunity to cultivate and educate a new contact who will benefit from understanding the government-utility team’s overall storm plan. Building and maintaining these connections before a major outage ultimately means faster restoration of services for constituents.

Mike Zappone is chief operations officer for Tempest Utility Consulting (TUC), which helps utilities efficiently manage key aspects of their operations, including project and safety programs, construction and field services and emergency storm support. TUC is part of the Tempest family of companies.