Public Utility Causes Additional Damage Post Hurricane Sandy

Case Overview

This case involves a house that sustained significant damage during Hurricane Sandy, allegedly due to the actions of the power company and its procedures. An appraisal valued the house at $800,000. The plaintiff’s house was partially submerged during a flood caused by the hurricane, and the area lost power for several weeks. In attempting to restore power to the home after the FEMA cleanup teams had done their best to mitigate the damage, the utility company failed to assess the viability of the homeowner’s primary lines, resulting in a massive explosion. The plaintiff alleged that this activity was negligent and directly resulted in extra damage to the home.

Questions to the Electrical expert and their responses

After a major storm or flood, what steps should a utility company take to restore power?

It is proper for a utility company to restore outages to groups of customers (main lines, feeders, reclosers, sectionalizers, fuses, etc.) before working on outages that only affect individual customers. Utilities will gather data from SCADA systems, their outage management system, 911 calls, customer calls, etc., and will dispatch restoration personnel to the highest priority issues, which is typically in this order: 1. 911 calls where a threat to the public is deemed to exist; 2. for major events such as hurricanes; facilities required to protect the health and welfare of the public (hospitals, water treatment, sewer, etc.); 3. large customer-count outages (feeders, reclosers, etc.); 4. smaller customer-count outages (sectionalizers, fuses, transformers); individual customer outages (transformers serving only one house, services, inside trouble, etc.).

is it necessary to assess the viability of lines prior to restoring power?

In addition to hands-on involvement and management of routine storm restoration, I have written storm restoration procedures for major storm events, and have developed storm support services for a utility contractor. All of the above considered, Hurricane Sandy was an exceptional storm and additional measures needed to be taken for all restoration activities.

About the expert

This qualified expert has worked for over 30 years in the electric utility industry and has restored electric service as a lineman working for Central Alabama Elec Co-op, as an engineer for Florida Power Corp, as a manager of multiple service dispatch centers for Florida Power Corp charged with storm restoration, and as the Director of the Hurricane Restoration Center for Florida Power Corp. In addition to hands on involvement and management of routine storm restoration, he has written storm restoration procedures for major storm events, been involved in the EEI Mutual Assistance Committee (for sharing resources following major events such as hurricanes, ice storms, etc.), and has developed storm support services for a utility contractor. He also possesses an Electrical Engineering degree and an MBA.

E-005895

Specialties:

Electrical

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