A perfect storm in Mat-Su

We are aware of frustration and befuddlement in the community over the power outages of the past few days. For those folks who hunkered down and weathered the storm – we thank you. Unfortunately as with any crisis the good and the bad of people come out and the employees at Matanuska Electric Association took a lot of angry calls from people who were convinced that we were at fault.

In dealing with Mother Nature, all bets are off and as a society we have all come to expect electricity as a way of life. True – to a point. As in the movies “The Perfect Storm” a series of events had to align to allow this storm and its ramifications to exist. MEA cares about its members, each of you, and wants you to understand those events and how they aligned. It’s important to remember, power was restored to the Valley without a single injury to the general public or to MEA linemen and employees.

THE TREES:

For starters this storm was absolutely unique with a formula for the “perfect storm.” We normally get a hard wind in the fall after the ground has frozen and tree roots are “anchored.” Just like pulling a nail, you rock it back and forth to pull it out – so the wind gusted and subsided over and over until the trees were uprooted and over they went. Couple this with the fact that all the rain we had this past summer made the ground soft and still moist – making the trees roots even more vulnerable to being uprooted. Add in the leaves still attached to the trees, which helped propel the trees over, sort of like a sails in the wind.

THE WIND:

Normally, we get an east wind off the Knik Arm. This storm was out of the North from the Matanuska Glacier. MEA received a report of winds gusting to as high as 112 miles per hour and then shifted to the northeast. Geographically it dwarfed normal wind events and previous wind speed. (In March 2003 the wind was clocked at 105 mph) MEA restored most people’s power within two to three days; after most hurricanes, power is out for as long as two weeks.

OUR LINEMAN:

We had twenty eight linemen working upwards of 30 hours without sleep. Our hats are off to these men who without sleep will be out there again all night tonight restoring power. In three days we have restored power to almost 4,000 miles of power lines. We replaced transformers and snapped poles that required a heavy crew, composed of four lineman, and took four hours per pole to restore.

COMMUNICATIONS:

MEA fielded more than 40,000 calls. Inundated with 85 percent outage calls, Palmer fire and police systems brought in extra dispatchers to handle their load. The normal call level on swing shift doubled at the Palmer emergency dispatch and extra dispatchers were called in starting about 9:30 p.m.

As the storm intensified, Fire Chief John McNutt and Director of Public Safety Jon Owen, came up with a work around solution to the overload of calls and sent a policeman over to the MEA dispatch.

Office Andy DeVeaux was sent to MEA around 9:30 p.m. to alleviate the communication barrier. DeVeaux monitored the emergency radio and provided MEA with the pole numbers from emergency scenes. This was a first and proved invaluable as he was able to monitor both fire and police frequencies. MEA had immediate knowledge of downed power lines from on scene emergency responders and allowed MEA dispatch to triage calls, which were threatening to life and or property. As always, MEA’s concern was the protection of lineman, emergency responders and citizens. We prioritized sending our lineman to an active fire where they could de-energize the line and allow firefighters to extinguish the fire.

REMEDIATION STEPS:

After a review of the weekends events MEA will be meeting with personnel from the City of Palmer Department of Public Safety and the Mat-Su Borough Department of Emergency Services to establish a “wind event response plan” for the utility. The first of a series of meetings will occur no later than the middle of this week

THE CORE OF THE BODY:

Like a human being going into shock the body pulls support from the extremities and protects the core, the heart. The MEA system parallels that core. Our first issue is safety – if there is a fire – we go there first. Secondly we take care of our transmissions lines (they feed the substations), thirdly we go to the substation breakers, and finally we go to thesubdivisions.

Due to circumstances beyond our control MEA’s normal channel of communications with the public was unavailable. This has highlighted the need for MEA to diversify ways in which communications can flow to the public during an emergency. As a result MEA is setting up a “communications response team” that will be tasked with opening avenues for the flow of vital information to our members during times of crisis.

Cheryll Heinze is the director of public affairs for Matanuska Electric Association.