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32 ENERGYBIZ MAGAZINE July/August 2005
“With that firestorm response, we really
had to think quickly outside the box,” recalls Scott
Drury, emergency services manager for the utility.
“There were a lot of logistics issues to consider.
We had 41 different staging areas to supply. Just
feeding the repair crews alone was a major issue.
Since a lot of the affected areas were remote, we
had to send in 6,000 meals a day for two weeks.”
The background organization work paid off.
Officials quickly and accurately assessed the scope of
the problem, coordinated with other emergency agencies,
and promptly decided to ask for help from outside
utilities in supplying repair crews, equipment, and even
telephone polls. As the dry weather triggered additional
fires throughout the region, SDG&E’s effort proved
prescient. Days later, many other utility companies
needed much the same infrastructure support.
Such disaster planning is becoming more commonplace
for utility companies across the country,
as the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks triggered a
renewed emphasis on disaster planning — both
on the national and local levels.
“Utility companies have always taken this issue
seriously,” says Ken Hall, director of security for
Edison Electric Institute, an industry trade association
based in Washington. “But after 9/11, that
whole experience has thrown the preparedness
challenge into a larger focus. September 11 has
been a big catalyst in thinking more about it.”
National Plans
Some of that focus has been prompted by national
initiatives. In February 2003, President Bush
issued a national directive to the Department of
Homeland Security, ordering the establishment of
a National Incident Management System (NIMS)
to provide “a consistent nationwide approach
for federal, state, and local governments to work
effectively and efficiently together to prepare for,
respond to, and recover from domestic incidents,
regardless of cause, size, or complexity.”
The aim of NIMS, which was placed under
FEMA, is to integrate emergency preparedness and
response under a comprehensive national framework
for incident management. Utility companies are
included in this framework, which is still being developed.
It is to include “a core set of concepts, principles,
terminology, and technologies covering the incident
command system; multi-agency coordination systems;
unified command; training; identification and management
of resources (including systems for classifying
types of resources); qualifications and certification;
and the collection, tracking, and reporting of incident
information and incident resources.”
The directive also established a National Response
Plan that integrates “government domestic prevention,
preparedness, response, and recovery plans into
one all-discipline, all-hazards plan.”
Utilities, of course, are no strangers to coping with
natural disasters — especially those in California,
which have been at the forefront of disaster planning
and response. Within the last few years, SDG&E
coped with wildfires, Pacific Gas & Electric dealt with
a major earthquake, and Southern California Edison
experienced energy shortages that triggered rolling
blackouts. Other natural disasters in the state included
periodic flooding, landslides, and mudslides.
Early Efforts
Since the early 1950s, California has had its own
emergency response office that sprang from the Cold
War imperative to plan for nuclear disaster as well
as established its own State Emergency Management
Systems (SEMS), which provide a framework for
emergency response and may well end up providing
the framework for the NIMS plan, according to
FEMA officials. No other state has such emergency
preparedness programs in place.