My fellow members,
I recognize that I reported that we should have Berrien County restored by yesterday. Unfortunately, the amount of work that was required at the locations of service interruption was greater than we anticipated. I say “greater,” but we believe we will wrap up the vast majority of those by tomorrow morning. In Lowndes County, work continues, and we expect to be finished there by Sunday morning.
As far as manpower is concerned, we have released a small number of right-of-way crews. The release was requested by the crews because they were needed elsewhere. We have reached the point in our restoration that the need for right-of-way crews has lessened, and the need for construction remains the same. The number of contract crews dedicated to construction has not changed. Those will not be released until we have completed all necessary work.
I have previously shared that for Hurricane Idalia, we brought in an additional 450 contract workers. With Debby, we requested that same amount from the beginning of that storm’s restoration effort. We recognized that there was much uncertainty about the ultimate strength, speed, and path of Hurricane Helene. Our Vice President of Operations, Andy Croft, recommended increasing our workforce to a level of approximately 650 the week of September 16, and on the 23 is when we committed to that contract and locked down the extra assistance. As the week of the 23 progressed we increased our number of contract personnel to something closer to 900. Friday, September 27, Helene struck our service territory. It was later that day when we slowly were able to begin doing some work and when the 650 contract crews were en route to our area. Saturday was truly the first day of restoration efforts.
Having such a large number of contract employees presents some challenges to an EMC. Such as familiarity with our system, our methods, and our standards for safety. Because of this, we find it necessary to gather groups of these contract crews and place them under the responsibility of an experienced Colquitt EMC line worker. These workers are commonly referred to as “bird dogs.” They direct the contract crews to the area that has damage and coordinate that work with our operations center. The limitation of the number of contract workers is based on the number of bird dogs that we can create within our in-house workforce.
By bringing in these extra resources, we must address other needs for them as well. They need to be fed and have lodging, restroom facilities, and laundry services. Some companies provide these exact services. By Monday the 23, we contracted with a company to provide these services for us. The company was able to arrive Friday afternoon on the 27th, and by that evening, they were set up to accommodate the total needs of our contract employees. I believe that one of the major reasons for our success in restoring service was our gaining their early commitment. We recognize that bringing these resources for assistance is costly. However, it is necessary to restore power after an outage like this.
My fellow members, I believe I say this in every update, and I sincerely hope that my times to say this will be fewer as we go forward. We appreciate your patience in getting your service restored. As always, we appreciate your prayers for our personnel and for our members. Thank you!
Sincerely,
Danny Nichols
President/CEO