Electrical Contractor

I S T O C K / B O N O T O M S T U D I O

In New York, the damage was less than anticipated, and residents, as well as the teams charged with rebuilding after the storm, chalked that up to luck. The storm’s trajectory kept it farther north and west from New York than projected, and the snow it dumped on the major cities was largely the light, dry and fluffy variety that doesn’t drag down tree limbs and power lines. But the easier-than-expected aftermath was not only due to the good grace of Mother Nature. The excellent preparation by the utilities and the contractors ensured a faster, more efficient recovery.

The devastation and cleanup efforts of storms, such as Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, have been educational for electrical contractors and led to new efforts focused on prevention and mobilization. With the kind of preliminary work done to prevent excessive damage, utility companies say they have seen a reduction in work following many storms, while proactive efforts to organize response teams has made the reconstruction faster and more efficient.

Let’s fast-forward to the storms in the Northeast this year. Within a week, power was restored to nearly every business and residence, and electrical contractors (ECs) that traveled as far as a thousand miles had returned to their homes and workplaces. And that, the ECs say, was because they were poised and ready to quickly rebuild where needed and mobilize to new areas if necessary.

Hundreds of contractors took part in the cleanup. The storm hit central and eastern Long Island to southern and eastern New England with the most ferocity. In Long Island, up to 2 feet of snow fell in places; Massachusetts saw up to 3 feet from Jan. 26–27, 2015.

For National Grid Utility, 28,000 customers (mostly in Massachusetts but also in Rhode Island and New Hampshire) were out of power by Monday night as the storm hit, while only 650 of its customers in New York, 400 in Pennsylvania and about 1,000 in North Carolina lost power. Most of the outages were near Cape Cod, Mass., and on the island of Nantucket, Mass., a

Electrical contractors’ preventative measures and planning slash storm power-outage lengths and frequency

WHEN A MONSTER STORM zeroed in on the Northeast in late January 2015—the first major storm of the year—preparation got underway for cleanup and rebuilding of damage that hadn’t happened yet. Utilities set up staging areas; contractors’ crews loaded their bucket trucks and headed toward New York, Boston and beyond. Without knowing the scope of the storm’s effect, utilities braced for up to 1 million customers without power, and the utilities and contractors planned well before any infrastructure ever felt the force of the wind, snow or ice.