BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS— Pat Mundorf of Clay Electric spoke to the Keystone Heights Rotary Club on Wednesday, June 8 about the process the co-op goes through when restoring power after a storm.
Mundorf said that preparations for an incoming storm begin more than a week before landfall.
“The National Weather Center has pretty good predictions about when a storm’s going to hit,” he said, “so we usually have a week to a 10-day window where we can start preparing things before the storm hits.”
He added that during a storm recovery, he is in charge of lodging and food for visiting lineman.
Mundorf said that the first year he had the responsibility, Hurricane Irma made its way up the Florida peninsula and he had to scramble to get lodging for incoming linemen.
“They told me a week ahead of time: ‘Okay start getting rooms.’ I was calling around getting rooms, and Florida Power and Light had every motel room in northeast Florida booked,” he recalled.
Mundorf said he has since learned a few tricks and techniques to secure rooms in advance, and he relies on area camps, like the Salvation Army Camp on Lake Bedford for housing.
He said line crews are out restoring power as a storm approaches, because winds from an incoming storm can down trees and lines. Mundorf added that crews can work until winds reach 45 miles per hour.
“We determine at that point it’s unsafe for our people to be out,” he said, “so we’ll send everybody home. Once the storm clears, then everybody reports to the office.”
Priorities and complaints
Mundorf said the first step in restoring power is performing an assessment: finding out where the problems are.
After that, the co-op focuses on its main, three-phase lines, then addresses critical infrastructure such as hospitals and grocery stores.
Mundorf said the assessment alone could take more than a day, and during those times, members get frustrated when they see the co-op’s trucks in their area, but do not see their power restored.
After restoring critical infrastructure, Clay Electric then prioritizes circuits with the most users.
“For instance, where I’m at there are only two of us on that piece of line,” he said. “If they’ve got another line, say in Hawthorne that might have 1,200 people out, they’re going to send the crews down to get those 1,200 people on before they send somebody out to get the two people on my line. It just makes sense.”
Mundorf said that after Irma, 98% of the co-op’s members were without power, and that created a logjam at the utility’s call center.
“A lot of people were frustrated, calling us that couldn’t get through on the phone lines,” he said. “You have 175,000 people without power. We’ve got about 200 phone
lines coming to our call center with 30 people answering phones, so it was a nightmare.”
Mundorf said another source of complaints after Irma was the co-op’s practice of leaving broken poles, bad transformers and other items at the sight of the repairs, then coming back later for cleanup.
“When we’re out there doing the work, if we’ve got 10 poles broke, there’s no way we’re going to be able to take those 10 poles, load them up and haul them back to the office,” he said. “It just it inhibits our restoration time.”
More information
Mundorf said that after a storm, if any member has not gotten power back after four days, he should check with the co-op. He added that sometimes, a line could be restored, but one member on that line could still be without power due to a bad transformer.
More information about the co-op’s storm restoration process, in addition to a hurricane preparedness guide, an information sheet on the safe operation of portable generators and a hurricane supply checklist may be found on the co-op’s storm center at ClayElectric.com.
