Our Approach to Restoration
We have established priorities that we apply during storm restoration. We may work on jobs from more than one category at the same time.
Our response is generally prioritized following these guidelines:
- Public safety calls are first priority, including police and fire life safety calls, Level 1 E-911 calls and life-threatening situations
- Clearing blocked roads of electrical hazards comes next
- Critical facilities are generally next, such as police and fire stations, hospitals, schools, and sewage and water plants. If these facilities are running on stable generator power, we may move them lower on the list
- Circuit backbones and lateral feeders follow. These are transmission lines and substations, followed by the larger “backbone” lines of our distribution network. We repair lines and substations based on how many customers are affected by each repair job
- From there, we prioritize distribution system repairs that restore the most customers as quickly as possible. Repairs that bring back only one or two customers are most frequently taken on near the end of restoration.
As we work on these jobs, we also have crews responding to less urgent community needs and priorities identified by local officials, such as clearing road obstructions that do not imperil public safety.