Utilities have learned to be prepared for weather crises

“During the 2007 ice storm, I remember when I was the only one available to run material to a field crew working near Ely,” recalled Eric Tanner, material control coordinator at Linn County REC in Marion. “And the only truck available to drive was the manager's personal vehicle.

“It's dark, it's foggy, it's icy … it takes forever to get anywhere because of road conditions. But we do what we have to do when it comes to restoring power after a storm.”

With 61 employees, Linn County REC buys and distributes power that's generated and transmitted from CIPCO, the Central Iowa Power Cooperative. Incorporated in 1939, Linn County REC's 25,000 members are located in rural and suburban areas of Linn and Johnson counties, with line extensions into Jones, Cedar, Iowa, and Benton counties.

To deal with extreme weather situations, the cooperative designs its systems to handle certain wind and ice loads specified in national codes, said Kevin Stucker, technology manager at Linn County REC. Because these standards change over time, the cooperative also has a workplan in place to update older parts of their system.

“Every seven years, an independent company tests our poles,” Tanner explained. “They give us a list of what they find.

“From that list, we do maintenance and replace the poles we need to.”

Those pole test results often play into the workplan already in place for updating system components. If the list indicates that a pole needs to be replaced, Linn County REC investigates to see if it's in an area where there are other older poles.

“It might make sense to replace that entire stretch at one time,” Tanner noted.

To maintain a high level of reliability, utilities and cooperatives work year-round to prepare for storms and outages.

“We do lots of maintenance, especially when it comes to tree trimming,” noted Kim Colberg, Linn County REC's general manager. “We spend about $350,000 per year in tree trimming.”

Linn County REC also has a three-day storm stock on hand at all times. Tanner has agreements with neighboring co-ops that use the same materials in case he needs to rely on them during a storm.

He also has storm stock in North Liberty.

“A tornado isn't as widespread as an ice storm, so if a tornado goes through northern Cedar Rapids, I can use storm stock in North Liberty,” Tanner said.

At MidAmerican Energy, spokeswoman Tina Potthoff explained, a dedicated planning and reliability group is responsible for:

• Monitoring voltage levels on transmission and distribution lines
• Reviewing daily outage reports to identify system deficiencies
• Evaluating aging equipment like wires, cables, insulators, cross arms, and poles
• Determining reliability improvements - including installation of lightning arresters and animal guards - and walking, climbing, and/or taking aerial photos of transmission systems.

The utility provides electric service to 729,000 customers and natural gas to 709,000 homes in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and South Dakota. Established in 1995, it has 3,425 full-time employees and 60 part-time employees.

To make sure staff members can follow emergency protocols, communicate effectively and execute resource deployment plans, MidAmerican conducts regular practice drills, Potthoff said. It also invested in National Incident Management System training and certification for 150 employees last year.

When it comes to gas supply, Potthoff said MidAmerican anticipates energy demands before the heating season.

“By mid-October 2011, through the use of storage and financial hedging, we secured the price on approximately 65 percent of the natural gas that customers are anticipated to need for this heating season.”

Doing this also protects customers from extreme price spikes.

“We take advantage of our state association's resources during big storms,” Linn County REC's Colberg said. “It has what's called an emergency plan arrangement.

“If we get in a bind and it's going to take days to restore power, we call them. They link us with some of the state's other RECs.”

The state association also reaches out to adjacent states and their resources during extreme weather events that affect the entire state. During the ice storm in 2007, for example, Missouri crews came to Iowa to help.

While all utilities have emergency management procedures in place, sometimes the best laid plans go awry. After a storm, Colberg says that Linn County REC takes to the sky to conduct visual inspections of line and system damage. During the ice storm of 2007, weather prevented that from happening.

Instead, engineers and line workers - people who knew the systems - drove each system, taking someone with them to take notes according to what damage they saw.

Communications plans, too, have been reworked during extreme weather.

“We lost our Internet connection, so I couldn't provide updates people were looking for on our website,” said Carrie Langridge, Linn County REC communications coordinator. After that experience, the utility decided to connect directly into the data center with fiber optics for a more reliable connection.

“After our connection was restored, we were doing morning, noon and afternoon updates,” Langridge said.

The cooperative also designed a mobile website so that members could view the site easily from their smartphones.

Because the line crew sometimes has to be creative when it comes to temporary solutions to restore power, engineers and field workers gear up after a storm to permanently fix what initially caused the outage.

“When you're replacing materials, sometimes what you're doing lasts only 6 or 8 months to a year after a storm,” Tanner explained. “You might put something back in the air safely as a temporary fix.

“After everyone is turned back on, we spend 2 or 3 months taking temporary fixes down and permanently fixing them.”