19th Outage Response and Restoration Management Conference
28-30 October 2019 | The W-Buckhead, Atlanta
For registration details and multiple attendee discounts, please contact:
Melini Hadjitheori
melinih@marcusevanscy.com
Interested? Do you feel you will benefit?
© Copyright 2019 marcus evans conferences
Prime city centre locations and venues ensure your event experience is as convenient as possible
LOCATION
The W-Buckhead, Atlanta
ABOUT THE INTERVIEW
At the 19th Outage Response & Restoration Management Conference, you are speaking on a topic fairly unique to the utility industry. Can you tell us more about ComEd’s statewide drill “Operation Power Play” and how it began? What are some of the successes and challenges?
The Operation Power Play series began in 2013 as a result of the 2011 storm season in Chicago. In July 2011, we had the worst storm in ComEd’s history facing close to 1 million customers without power (~24% of the total customer base). After that storm, there were several gaps identified by our municipal governments and ComEd Senior Leadership regarding working together during large disasters. Two years later, in 2013, we conducted our first Statewide Exercise to correct some of the learnings from the 2011 storm.
Successes – Have to be the relationships built during the planning process. The benefits of “building relationships” can be hard to measure, but we had immediate results when we were planning the first statewide exercise. In April 2013, we had unexpected flooding at a major substation. If it flooded, we would have lost 2 hospitals and approximately 50,000 customers. Water was in the basement of the station and we were literal inches away from losing it completely. Luckily we were able call our new partners (CITGO and Cook County DHSEM) who had pumps and hoses, and literally pumped water out and saved the substation). But for the exercise, we would have never had those contacts or know we could have called them.
Challenges - The biggest challenge was initially convincing people to join and getting them to follow our vision of the exercise. In 2013, about 30 organizations participated in one way or another. After some small successes in that and the following years, we are now up to 85 participating agencies. It can also be very difficult to get people outside your own agency to commit and follow up with assignments. They are not required to followed up by any law or regulatory agency. So the benefits must outweigh the work, and it is your relationship with that person that often determines whether they will complete the assignment on time, or at all.
What are some of the key takeaways from the drill every year?
Each year, we see some similar takeaways. By far the relationship building is by far the most cited as the positive takeaway. This is mostly in understanding each other’s response procedures, and what the other groups bring to the response - What are they capable of bringing if called upon.
The most common area for improvement is always communications. Specifically, there is no single communications or information sharing platform that is used by all the players. This includes: Governments at the local, County, State, and Federal levels, Military, Private Business, Academia, and National Laboratories. There exists several information sharing platforms (WebEOC, Sharepoint, etc..) that each group could use, but none that each group would use both during normal operations and during an emergency. Asking an organization to only use some data sharing platform during disasters is not as effective as something they use during daily operations.
How do apply those takeaways from “Operation Power Play” into every day operations at ComEd?
We utilize the lessons learned from Operation Power play to enhance our emergency procedures and make sure we are in regular contact with key emergency response partners.
In your opinion and experience, why would you say it is important to create unity during emergency events?
We saw during the July 2011 storm at ComEd that government agencies were not connected to ComEd and aware of how ComEd prioritized restoration. Likewise, ComEd did not understand the expectations from municipal leaders. Exercises like Operation Power Play makes this (and many other) processes more transparent, so when the next disaster occurs, both parties are familiar with each other’s response procedures.
On a more personal note, tell us an interesting fact about yourself that is not included in your professional biography.
Stan enjoys the outdoors, boating is his favorite outdoor activity and Dave loves to travel. His goal is to step on all 7 continents one day.
Ahead of the 19th Outage Response and Restoration Management Conference, we got the opportunity to speak with both Stanley Fabinski and David Bunge of ComEd. Stanley serves as the Director of Emergency Preparedness while David serves as the Manager of Emergency Preparedness.
STANLEY FABINSKI AND DAVID BUNGE WILL BE HOSTING A JOINT DISCUSSION
Leveraging Statewide Emergency Operations Groups to Acquire Resources and Assist with Restoration Efforts
• Creating unity during emergency events by collaborating resources to maximize response time
• Highlighting the challenges with obtaining and allocating supplies to respective areas and distribution centers
• Ensuring economic stability
• Prioritizing road opening tasks with strike teams to clear space
