Hot Topic: Witt Associates Report on Utility Outage Restoration

OLR Report 2011-R-0458 summarizes the “Connecticut October 2011 Snowstorm Restoration Report” prepared by Witt Associates.

The Witt Associates report assesses the preparedness, response, and restoration efforts of the electric companies, primarily Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P), in connection with the October 2011 snowstorm. It provides a brief summary of the snowstorm, describes how Witt Associates developed the report, and presents findings and recommendations for improving power restoration response. The report states that it is intended to provide a basis for further examination of key issues and improvement planning by the state, municipalities, and utilities.

Among the report's key findings are:

1. the level of preparedness, including planning, training, and exercises, for a widespread power outage or events that damage infrastructure is inadequate across all sectors;
2. in particular, CL&P was not prepared for an outage of this size;
3. the company's public commitments to restore power by specific times, which had not been verified internally, unnecessarily contributed to customer frustration and challenges for municipalities;
4. CL&P's Town Liaison Program, while a good concept, had not been fully developed at the time of the snowstorm and was not consistently effective; and
5. the use of external mutual assistance and contract crews, while needed to restore power, presented communication, reporting, and tracking challenges because they often did not have the same communications or field reporting technology as local crews.

 On the other hand, the restoration effort was accomplished without any deaths or serious injuries.

 

The report makes 27 recommendations. In general terms, it recommends that CL&P:

1. improve its planning, procedures, training, and pre-staging practices to adequately prepare its crews and resources for the scale of incidents it and its customers potentially face by significantly increasing the scale of planning scenarios;
2. develop an ability to manage large-scale incidents by implementing an Incident Command System (ICS) structure that expands with the requirements of the incident;
3. improve its processes for (a) information management, including message verification and communication; (b) coordination with local governments; and (c) dissemination of public information to its customers, external partners, stakeholders, and the media; and
4. more closely coordinate and integrate preparedness activities with state and local governments to include ongoing planning, training, and exercise for utility disruption.

Similarly, the report also recommends that state and local government planning and preparedness address major power disruption more comprehensively and inclusively, including coordinating with utilities and developing procedures for damage assessment teams.

For more information, read the full OLR Report.