Many Midwest utilities will not quickly forget the January 2005 ice storms. Lorain-Medina Rural Electric Cooperative (LMRE), along with many other Ohio utilities, had the double misfortune of being visited by winter weather twice in one week this past January. The first incident was the worst ice storm in the company's 70-year history, and the second storm brought 6 inches of heavy snow, which took down parts of their system that had just been repaired. LMRE is based in Wellington, Ohio, about 40 miles southwest of Cleveland.

The ice storm hit on Wednesday, January 5, taking out 50% of LMRE's customers' power. Part of the outages were from the equally heavy toll the storm took on FirstEnergy transmission lines, which feed LMRE substations in Camden, Eaton, Rochester, Wellington, Sullivan and Spencer, Ohio, townships. By Thursday night, the number of outages was reduced to less than 20% after FirstEnergy restored transmission service to the Sullivan Substation. On Friday morning that number was reduced to 5%. With only a few hundred customers still without power, crews began to breathe a little easier.

Then on Saturday morning, a heavy snowfall hampered restoration efforts and caused additional outages, some that had just been repaired. But by Sunday night, all lines were up with the exception of one line in Jackson Township, where there were still a few broken poles and several strands of wires on the ground.

Pinpointing Problem Areas

Ice storms are something that utilities prepare for with in-house training and with an outsourcing contingency plan. On January 5, when the first outages were reported, several of LMRE's substations went out of service. It was difficult to tell whether consumers were out of power due to a line outage, a substation outage due to FirstEnergy's transmission lines being down, or both.

LMRE's SCADA equipment paid big dividends during the ice storm. This technology helped reduce the length of outages by six to eight hours on Thursday, January 6, when the outage numbers peaked. The SCADA system, which monitors substation and major feeder supply activity and transmits load information to a computer at the cooperative office, was able to isolate the outage, whether it was a FirstEnergy transmission system failure or a problem with the cooperative's distribution equipment.

The system also allows LMRE employees to operate line switches remotely from the base computer, which was critical during the ice storm. There were line-circuit problems at the Baird Road Substation in Camden Township, the Robson Road Substation in Eaton Township and Central Substation, behind the cooperative's headquarters in Wellington Township. Crews were able to find the problem along the circuit and then isolate the fault.

Back at the central office, workers were able to “close in the circuit” using the SCADA equipment without the line crews having to return to the substation to close the circuit back in. Crews were not required to run back and forth to the three substations that were in question to manually throw switches. Compared to past outages, the system was able to bring people on a lot sooner.

OREC Responds

Ohio Rural Electric Cooperative (OREC), a statewide agency that provides LMRE and the 23 other Ohio electric cooperatives with job training and safety services, went into emergency management mode. It arranged and coordinated mutual aid crews from other cooperatives and private electric contractors across the region as well as necessary equipment.

Pike Electric (Zanesville, Ohio), which had crews working in the area, and Harrison Rural Electrification Association (Clarksburg, West Virginia) each sent several crews to the cooperative. They were released by a sister cooperative, Holmes-Wayne Electric Cooperative, where they had been rebuilding lines and restoring service following the ice storm.

By increasing the number of crews available, LMRE responded in typical electric utility industry tradition. Crews were eager to work and didn't want to stop. The hardest part was respecting new OSHA guidelines, which restrict workers to 16-hour days and eight hours off before returning to the restoration effort. Some went from home to home. The rest was important and refreshed the crews and ensured a safer work environment.

The outage restoration plan was to first restore power to as many consumers as possible, which meant energizing the affected substations. The next priority was to repair and rebuild feeder lines and then tap lines. Individual outages were among the last to be restored.

The second storm, which hit two days into the restoration effort, and a major truck accident that took out two poles made field personnel feel like they were taking two steps forward and one step back. Just when crews felt like they were getting customers back up, the call center would start getting calls again from the area just restored.

12,800 Calls to Call Center

Lorain-Medina Rural Electric's after-hours call center, the Cooperative Response Center located in Austin, Minnesota, handled more calls during the storm than it had received in the entire previous year. Automated phone messages were also kept updated. Approximately one-third of the callers hung up after hearing the updated opening message.

This did not include the number of calls LMRE employees handled at the central office on Friday and Saturday when the utility decided to take back the phones so members could talk directly to LMRE employees. When employees answered the phone at LMRE, some customers apologized for taking up their time. They only wanted an update being provided by recording. Others were glad to talk to a human from whom they could get their questions answered. Some wanted to vent their frustrations, which was understandable, given the cold, dark conditions many had to live with.

One person with an urgent need to get her lights back on invited linemen to have breakfast at her home, where she had scheduled a special breakfast for 25 high-school basketball players. Crews were able to restore the woman's power but did not stay for breakfast.

Keeping the Public Informed

Communications is always critical when people do not have power. LMRE worked with county officials, emergency response agencies and the local radio stations to keep members abreast of power restoration progress. Daily press releases were issued to area newspapers. As the outage progressed, Cleveland TV and radio stations began inquiring about the outage, and they were included in regular updates.

Unfortunately, one of the places without power was the LMRE Internet service provider that hosted the utility's website service. LMRE has an advanced customer service platform at its website, including one of the first online billing programs installed by a cooperative in the country. At the time, the service provider did not have backup generation in place. In addition to providing electricity to members, LMRE serves a specialty market for the installation of standby generators with automatic or manual transfer switches and emergency panels. Company electricians that hold Ohio contractors' licenses install backup generation systems to businesses in the territory. The service provider now has a backup generation system.

By noon on Monday, all of the lines out of service due to the ice storm and the snowstorm were restored, and crews began work on individual outages and problem areas.

Summary

The real test of an emergency management program is dealing with an ice storm in the dead of winter. Add to that a heavy snowfall in the same week, and you find out if all the planning and investment in equipment will pay off. LMRE passed the test thanks to the commitment of LMRE crews and outside support. Investment in SCADA technology helped isolate the problem areas and shortened the outage time by days.

Kim Hinkle has been with LMRE for 29 years and has been operations manager since 2001. khinkle@fesco-oh.org

Terry Mazzone, LMRE's director of marketing, is responsible for the cooperative's communications and oversees the marketing and load management programs. He has been with LMRE for 13 years. tmazzone@fesco-oh.org.