by Timothy Rutt
Representatives from Southern California Edison made an apology and promises of better performance in the next crisis at last night's Town Council meeting.
Walt Johnston, Edison’s vice president in charge of power delivery, said that “We could’ve done better, and we will do better next time.”
Johnston said that the utility lost 12-14 hours in recovery because they were concerned about getting power up too soon before checking if there were live wires on the ground. Johnston said that four Edison customers were killed this year by downed wires, so they were being extremely cautious.
Still, he said, the decision to secure the wires before starting the recovery after the windstorm was something that, Johnson said, “if I could do it over again, I’d do it differently.” In hindsight, he said, it might have paid to “be a little less cautious.”
Edison is now in the process of doing a massive “lessons learned” study, Johnston said. The utility has brought in a experts from utilities in Florida and Alabama who deal with tornadoes and hurricanes on a regular basis.
One of the weaknesses of the system, Johnston said, is that communications relies on technology, and the technology relies on electricity. Without electricity, phones and computers do not work.
Ben Wong, Edison’s director of local public affairs, told the council that in the aftermath of the storm the utility was working with the county supervisor’s office and had recently been invited to join the county’s Coordinated Agency Recovery Effort (CARE), which goes into operation during emergencies. Wong said that CARE had not included utilities as part of the effort, and “we’ve all seen the wisdom that utilities should be part of that as well.”
Edison officials said that they brought in crews from Temecula, Santa Barbara, Nevada, San Diego, and other contract crews to help restore power. The utility also used over 100 trained tree clearing crews to handle trees around the utility lines, and lost over 200 poles in the windstorm.
Town council chair Sandra Thomas asked if the utility would provide reimbursement for costs related to the windstorm, such as renting a hotel room while the power was out. Wong said that the California Public Utility Commission rules said that they do not reimbuse for things that are out of their control, such as the weather.
Councilman Allan Wasserman asked about the feasibility of moving the wires underground. Johnston responded that underground lines would be less affected by wind, but “when overhead facilities have issues -- windstorm, balloons, equipment failure -- you can fix fairly quickly. Underground, when it fails, you’re out for some time.” Rates for underground systems would be “astronomical,” Johnston said, and when underground transformers fail, they fail “catastrophically,” blowing manhole covers over 30 feet in the air.
Wong said that the utility had started a new internal incident command system in the wake of the storm, which unfortunately had already been used: an Edison employee killed two supervisors and wounded two others before taking his own life Friday at Edison's Irwindale facility.
