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12-14-2007, 12:18 PM
By Jack Broom
Seattle Times staff reporter
Losing power in a fierce storm is bad enough. Going day after day not knowing when it will come back makes it that much more difficult.
A year after the Hanukkah Eve Wind Storm knocked out electricity to more than 1 million customers statewide — some for more than 10 days — officials at the state's largest energy utility concede they need to do a better job letting people know how long they'll be in the dark.
"We listened to our customers and we heard it over and over again ... and frankly, we saw it ourselves," said Bert Valdman, chief operating officer for Puget Sound Energy (PSE). "We need to provide timely and accurate information."
After hiring a consulting firm to review its storm response last year, PSE is increasing efforts to clear trees away from transmission lines, assess storm damage more quickly and work more effectively with other agencies to restore power and share information, Valdman said.
The day the winds hit
On Dec. 14, 2006, gusts topped 100 miles an hour in the Cascades and 70 miles an hour in the Puget Sound basin, crippling PSE's distribution system, knocking out 85 of its 208 high-voltage lines and shutting down 159 of its 358 neighborhood substations.
"I've worked pretty much every storm in the past 35 years ... and I have never seen this amount of structural damage to our transmission system," said Greg Zeller, PSE's director of electric operations. The utility suffered $90 million in damage and lost power to 70 percent of its 1 million electrical customers.
The storm was also blamed for 15 deaths, seven during the storm and eight afterward as people who used generators, grills and barbecues indoors fell victim to carbon monoxide. Damage to insured homes, cars and businesses topped $170 million — a figure that doesn't include losses by utilities and government agencies.
As the outages dragged on, many PSE customers without power complained they were getting only sketchy information about when electricity might be restored.
Some of the longest outages were in the Duvall area, where a five-day closure of the Woodinville-Duvall Road pointed out a need for greater cooperation between agencies, according to Linda Dougherty, King County's Road Services director.
County workers couldn't remove fallen trees until PSE crews cleared downed power lines. But the PSE crews couldn't clear power lines because trees were in the way.
Since then, the agencies have created "road-clearing task forces" to work together to reopen roadways
PSE has also installed 40 miles of new or upgraded transmission lines, plus 35 miles of thickly coated "tree wire," designed to better withstand falling limbs.
But getting better information to the public about outages requires the utility itself to get a quicker assessment of the damage, Valdman said. To accomplish that, PSE this year trained 179 "damage assessors" to quickly relay information to utility managers.
Now the utility's goal will be to "call the storm" — or make a general gauge of its effects — within 24 hours, and within the next two days provide a reasonable estimate of when power will be restored.
In last year's storm, PSE brought in more than 1,200 workers from as far away as Alaska, Wisconsin and Missouri. Securing extra crews was more difficult for Seattle City Light, due to the timing of the storm, said spokesman Scott Thomsen. In the days before the blow, smaller windstorms caused outages in outlying power districts but not serious outages in Seattle.
As a result, many repair crews had already been enlisted by PSE and other utilities by the time City Light needed them after the Hanukkah Eve storm, which cut power to 180,000 City Light customers. Although more than 80 percent had service back within two days, it took more than a week to restore everyone.
In response, City Light this year has drawn up 20 new "mutual aid" agreements with utilities as far away as Ohio, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, bringing its total number of such agreements to about 80, Thomsen said.
Other steps taken by City Light since the storm include planning to have key decision-makers gather at one operations center after a storm. That move has already proven successful by speeding the response to an October storm, Thomsen said.
Meanwhile, few communities will remember the Hanukkah Eve storm longer than Duvall.
A year ago, hundreds gathered at the Duvall Church for evening meals and movies during the outage, thanks to a large generator provided by the National Guard.
"It was a camping trip for the first two days, and then it got really old, really fast," said the associate pastor, John Olson. "Their homes were dark and cold, and just getting into light and heat was a major issue."
Although Olson heard plenty of grumbling about the length of the outage, he said most people struggled to maintain a positive attitude.
"Something like this makes everybody equal," Olson said. "Bankers are eating with loggers. People aren't showered, but they're all sitting down together. You really find community in a crisis."
from: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004071348_pse14m.html
Seattle Times staff reporter
Losing power in a fierce storm is bad enough. Going day after day not knowing when it will come back makes it that much more difficult.
A year after the Hanukkah Eve Wind Storm knocked out electricity to more than 1 million customers statewide — some for more than 10 days — officials at the state's largest energy utility concede they need to do a better job letting people know how long they'll be in the dark.
"We listened to our customers and we heard it over and over again ... and frankly, we saw it ourselves," said Bert Valdman, chief operating officer for Puget Sound Energy (PSE). "We need to provide timely and accurate information."
After hiring a consulting firm to review its storm response last year, PSE is increasing efforts to clear trees away from transmission lines, assess storm damage more quickly and work more effectively with other agencies to restore power and share information, Valdman said.
The day the winds hit
On Dec. 14, 2006, gusts topped 100 miles an hour in the Cascades and 70 miles an hour in the Puget Sound basin, crippling PSE's distribution system, knocking out 85 of its 208 high-voltage lines and shutting down 159 of its 358 neighborhood substations.
"I've worked pretty much every storm in the past 35 years ... and I have never seen this amount of structural damage to our transmission system," said Greg Zeller, PSE's director of electric operations. The utility suffered $90 million in damage and lost power to 70 percent of its 1 million electrical customers.
The storm was also blamed for 15 deaths, seven during the storm and eight afterward as people who used generators, grills and barbecues indoors fell victim to carbon monoxide. Damage to insured homes, cars and businesses topped $170 million — a figure that doesn't include losses by utilities and government agencies.
As the outages dragged on, many PSE customers without power complained they were getting only sketchy information about when electricity might be restored.
Some of the longest outages were in the Duvall area, where a five-day closure of the Woodinville-Duvall Road pointed out a need for greater cooperation between agencies, according to Linda Dougherty, King County's Road Services director.
County workers couldn't remove fallen trees until PSE crews cleared downed power lines. But the PSE crews couldn't clear power lines because trees were in the way.
Since then, the agencies have created "road-clearing task forces" to work together to reopen roadways
PSE has also installed 40 miles of new or upgraded transmission lines, plus 35 miles of thickly coated "tree wire," designed to better withstand falling limbs.
But getting better information to the public about outages requires the utility itself to get a quicker assessment of the damage, Valdman said. To accomplish that, PSE this year trained 179 "damage assessors" to quickly relay information to utility managers.
Now the utility's goal will be to "call the storm" — or make a general gauge of its effects — within 24 hours, and within the next two days provide a reasonable estimate of when power will be restored.
In last year's storm, PSE brought in more than 1,200 workers from as far away as Alaska, Wisconsin and Missouri. Securing extra crews was more difficult for Seattle City Light, due to the timing of the storm, said spokesman Scott Thomsen. In the days before the blow, smaller windstorms caused outages in outlying power districts but not serious outages in Seattle.
As a result, many repair crews had already been enlisted by PSE and other utilities by the time City Light needed them after the Hanukkah Eve storm, which cut power to 180,000 City Light customers. Although more than 80 percent had service back within two days, it took more than a week to restore everyone.
In response, City Light this year has drawn up 20 new "mutual aid" agreements with utilities as far away as Ohio, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, bringing its total number of such agreements to about 80, Thomsen said.
Other steps taken by City Light since the storm include planning to have key decision-makers gather at one operations center after a storm. That move has already proven successful by speeding the response to an October storm, Thomsen said.
Meanwhile, few communities will remember the Hanukkah Eve storm longer than Duvall.
A year ago, hundreds gathered at the Duvall Church for evening meals and movies during the outage, thanks to a large generator provided by the National Guard.
"It was a camping trip for the first two days, and then it got really old, really fast," said the associate pastor, John Olson. "Their homes were dark and cold, and just getting into light and heat was a major issue."
Although Olson heard plenty of grumbling about the length of the outage, he said most people struggled to maintain a positive attitude.
"Something like this makes everybody equal," Olson said. "Bankers are eating with loggers. People aren't showered, but they're all sitting down together. You really find community in a crisis."
from: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004071348_pse14m.html