Eversource Blog Details Behind-the-Scenes Restoration Efforts

CONNECTICUT — In the wake of a massive power loss brought on by Tropical Storm Isaias last week, Eversource Energy has published a blog post explaining much of the behind-the-scenes work that went into the power restoration effort. It is reprinted below in full.

While thousands of crews from across the country and Canada are working day and night throughout Connecticut to restore power to our customers impacted by Isaias, there are thousands more coordinating the effort behind the scenes. From orchestrating the movement of thousands of new utility poles and transformers to the areas where they are needed most, to securing more than 6,500 beds for crews and serving more than 30,000 meals daily during a pandemic – our support teams are dedicated to ensuring that our team can get the job done as quickly and safely as possible. To safely accommodate crews repairing the incredible damage Isaias left in its wake, Eversource has established staging areas across the state while adhering to strict social distancing, hygiene and sanitation measures to safeguard the health of our team and communities.

“The pandemic has created many unique challenges and required thoughtful consideration of how we are operating our staging areas and mobile command centers that dispatch crews to outages, as well as how we are supporting our crews with the materials, food and lodging that they need,” Eversource Vice President of Supply Chain and Property Management Ellen Greim said. “As we limit the number of team members working in confined spaces, we have established large staging areas to accommodate the hundreds of additional vehicles and trailers required to support this historic restoration effort. Additionally, we have established smaller staging sites in our hardest-hit communities to efficiently move tools and equipment where they are needed most.”

At the smaller staging areas in our hardest-hit communities, experienced incident commanders are managing teams of lineworkers from mobile response units, dispatching them to outages on the circuits within their region to enhance the efficiency of our response and utilization of our crews.

“The number of crews supporting this restoration is unbelievable,” said Eversource NH Director of Transmission Construction Marc Geaumont, who is serving as an incident commander for New Hampshire crews supporting the effort in the Berlin region. “When you have a storm of this magnitude cause such widespread damage, everyone wants to do everything they can to get the power back for customers. This is a huge team effort.”

As additional crews and resources continue to arrive in Connecticut to join our army of workers tirelessly restoring power to our customers, even our Safety Department adjusted its onboarding process to ensure workers’ health. Contractors were provided all their onboarding instructions with video messages rather than in large, group meetings. Additionally, thousands of supporting team members, from customer service representatives to damage assessment coordinators, are working remotely.

“We conduct regular training exercises across our company, simulating our response to a wide range of challenging conditions where elements are introduced that would complicate our response to an emergency,” added Greim. “With Isaias, the complication has certainly been the unprecedented precautions we need to take while operating under our pandemic plan. After months of operating in the COVID-19 environment, we anticipated the unique challenges we would be up against and were prepared to manage the logistics of this incredible restoration effort while safeguarding the health of our workers and customers.”

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