The conversations started even before Sandy had a name.
Officials from Georgia Power and other utilities along the East Coast started calling each other, knowing that millions could be days away from losing electricity.
How many workers do you need? How many can you spare?
Then it was time to load up bucket trucks and send people on their way - before the wind, rain, floods and snow hit.
Southern Co. sent 2,000 people to Maryland, New York, Virginia and other states to help restore power. Utility crews rolled into the hardest hit areas like a mobile army. The group included line workers, managers, mechanics, doctors and logistics supervisors to make sure everyone gets fed and a place to stay. Equipment such as transformers and electrical wires may go as well if utilities in other states need them.
Lending workers and equipment isn’t part of the drill in most industries, but for utilities it’s a routine element of emergency response. Southern Co.’s four utilities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi received their share of help after hurricanes such as Katrina and Ivan. Sandy gave them a chance to return the favor.
“Without this process, we could not get the lights on within any reasonable amount of time. No one could have enough employees for a major event,” said Aaron Strickland, Georgia Power’s distribution manager.
Southern and its utilities are part of two mutual-assistance networks - one for the Southeast, the other national - that send line workers and other crews to help in major disasters. They meet twice a year to review how workers are distributed, who pays for what and how long crews stay. That way when a disaster hits, the only challenging is actually getting the lights back on.
A mobile home of sorts serves as the utility’s remote office in places where crews go to help. Phones, computers, printers and other equipment help dispatch crews to a designated area for what is typically a 16-hour day. By that time Georgia Power’s managers and supervisors have met with officials from the other utilities to find out what’s broken and where the materials are to fix it.
Then they review safety procedures, hand out maps of the electrical system and go to work.
Workers first go to the most damaged areas, which often change based on daily assessments.
“You don’t just rush out there and start putting up poles,” said Tom Fanning, Southern’s chairman and chief executive officer, in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“You have to understand the problem and understand the conditions in which people have to work.”
For utility crews, that means replacing poles and stringing up electrical wires in wind, rain, snow and flooded areas. The challenges are many: electrical wires are tangled in trees, toppled utility poles may also be road barriers. Workers sent to repair underground power lines in Manhattan got into the area via tractor trailers.
Southern’s utility customers don’t pay for this; after the job is done, the costs are tallied and a bill gets sent to the out-of-state electric company that needed the help.
“There’s no profit,” Strickland. “You pay me what it costs me so that it does not impact Georgia Power customers.”
Strickland said he feels like he has had a phone stuck to his ear for more than a week. Besides keeping track of Georgia Power’s crews, he co-chairs the nationwide utility mutual-assistance program that is tapping line workers from as far away as California to help restore power after Sandy.
“We’re turning over every rock that we can to get people into that area,” he said. “We’re talking and searching the [co-operative utilities] the city utilities — do they have anybody?” he said. “How can we move them up there?”
Strickland wasn’t going to let any of his people go before it was clear Sandy wouldn’t cause widespread power outages in Georgia. Company officials reviewed weather maps to make sure it was safe to lend workers for what typically is about 14 days. Georgia Power has 850 line workers but hires others on a contract basis as well, he said.
“If I see bad weather coming, I’m not going to send as many people,” Strickland said. “And then we start looking throughout the state, sending four or five people from this area and 10 people from that area and still keep the lights on for Georgians.”
