The beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season begins in June, but the City of Thomasville began prepping for the busy storm season months ago. According to City staff, it is a unified approach to storm preparedness and outage management that has well equipped the organization for the stormy season ahead.
“Any significant weather event can impact our entire organization,” said Chris White, Assistant Utilities Superintendent. “From electrical outages to downed trees to the services that support these departments – it really can touch every department in some fashion.”
White said that for electric operations, the outage management system currently in place helps keep the department one step ahead of the storm. This system is supported by the City’s automated metering infrastructure, or AMI. The City of Thomasville began pursuing AMI in 2005.
“At that time, the City of Thomasville was one of the first utilities to partner with Tantalus to deploy their AMI system in the United States. The entire AMI conversion took approximately five years and was completed in 2010,” said White. “During a weather event, AMI allows our staff to know when and where power is compromised before the customer calls to report the outage.”
Knowing where and when outages occur is important for a variety of reasons. “Electricity is an important resource, so knowing when and where system problems exist in the system, particularly during weather events, is extremely important,” said White. “Smart metering allows you to not only detect when outages occur, but also when dips or anomalies occur as well, which is important to maintaining the integrity, reliability and quality of our system. This is essential to serving not only our residential customers, but also our larger industrial customers.”
Many electrical outages are caused by downed trees and other debris that can in turn bring down power lines. Responding to these types of outages involves a coordinated response with other City departments.
“During the height of a storm, a tree may fall and bring down the utility lines,” said White. “Our public safety departments are the first responders on the scenes in these instances. It’s not unusual to see the members of the Thomasville Police Department managing intersections where traffic signals are out or Thomasville Fire Rescue managing the scene of an arcing power line, for example. All of these responses are coordinated through the Emergency Operations Center, or EOC.”
During significant weather events, Thomas County Emergency Management will make the decision as to whether or not opening the EOC is necessary. If the decision is made, several City staff members are assigned to coordinate the City’s response in conjunction with the County’s response.
“If you are ever in the EOC during a storm, you’ll see City and County representatives from several departments, all working together to make sure the response to storm damage and emergencies is coordinated so that we aren’t duplicating efforts,” said White. “From the City’s side, we usually have representation from Police and Fire to dispatch emergency calls, Public Works to respond to downed trees and blocked roadways, communications staff to serve as a liaison with the media and the public and even GIS as part of a joint mapping effort with the County.”
White said that the City will also have their own EOC operating to help coordinate the response of other departments, such as Solid Waste and other Utility departments. “We also have additional staff to help manage our outage line, which can be quite busy during a significant weather event.”
During the peak of Hurricane Irma, for example, staff members received nearly 5,000 calls throughout the storm to report outages. White said, “At the storm’s peak, we had 8,097 customers without power across 285 outages.”
For the 2018 storm season, the City will have a new service to help customers report outages, Tville Text Alert. “This system will allow customers to report their outages and receive updates on the outage via text messaging,” said White. “In order to use the service, customers will need to make sure their mobile number is connected to their utility account.” Information about Tville Text Alert is available on the City’s website, Thomasville.org.
According to White, the City’s preparations for a storm actually begins long before the effects of the storm are felt locally. “When a significant event is expected, we usually begin having weather briefings at the EOC with the National Weather Service,” he said. “We then have briefings involving many City departments so that we can fine tune our response plan. We begin making planning decisions, discuss equipment preparations, asset protection for our facilities and infrastructure and even how and where to house personnel if needed. We make plans for everything from having enough fuel for vehicles to planning a food supply for departments that might be called in for extended periods of time. Mutual aid agreements, payroll planning, supplies inventory and procurement – there is a great deal of advance planning that occurs when the storm may still be days away from our area.”
Advance planning is the key for the City’s emergency preparedness planning, White said. “We have a great team of employees, which makes it all much easier,” he said. “Together, we make sure our community is as prepared as possible. In order to restore services to our customers quickly, we have to work together safely and efficiently. It’s gratifying to be a part of the effort to help bring our community back together after an event like a major hurricane.”