Puget Sound Energy crews and emergency responders have taken steps to ready if high winds and heavy rain batter the region.
“While the sun was shining these past few months, our crews were busy trimming trees, working on reliability projects and getting ready for winter,” said Andy Wappler, a certified meteorologist and PSE vice president of corporate affairs. “Now that the weather is changing, those preparations will help us serve our customers as storm season begins.”
Although the National Weather Service predicts an El Nino weather pattern, which typically results in a mild mid-to-late winter with warmer and drier weather than average, the phenomenon has little impact on reducing the number of fall and early winter storms. As an example, meteorologists point to the very stormy fall of 2006, which brought flooding, snow and the devastating Dec. 14-15 Hanukkah Eve wind storm.
“Our PSE crews are ready for storm season, and we want families and businesses to be ready, too,” Wappler said. “Our storm bases used our recent mild weather to train for when weather turns rough. The professionals are prepared. We want your family to be prepared as well.”
More than 250 PSE personnel recently took part in the utility’s annual “mock storm” exercises at PSE’s Emergency Coordination Center and its storm bases in Olympia, Puyallup, Kent, Redmond, Poulsbo and Burlington. The series of drills required crews to simulate all aspects of response to a major, widespread storm, from assessing damaged electrical systems and dispatching line crews to coordinating with local emergency-service agencies and communicating with customers and the media.
While effective, well-planned storm response is vital, Wappler said, equally critical is the work PSE does throughout the year to harden its energy-delivery infrastructure. PSE invests more than $100 million per year to maintain its electric system and enhance equipment reliability. The effort includes such things as:
– Trimming or removing trees that are threatening to come into contact with power lines. In all, PSE trims approximately 1,110 miles of high-voltage transmission line and 1,900 miles of distribution lines annually across its nine-county electric service area.
– Strategically replacing overhead power lines with specially coated “tree wire” that is less prone to power outages if a tree branch falls into the line.
– Upgrading substations and replacing aged transformers, fuses, breakers, power poles and other electrical equipment.
– Replacing overhead power lines in outage-prone areas with underground cable.
