The winter of power discontent

BY OMER GILLHAM World Staff Writer
Sunday, December 07, 2008
12/07/12 at 1:10 PM

Emergency workers and residents said they have learned valuable lessons from a vicious ice storm last year that left 78 percent of area residents without power and caused 29 deaths and numerous injuries.

Striking Dec. 9, 2007, the winter storm destroyed thousands of trees and damaged 1,400 power poles while knocking out 270 pole-mount transformers across Oklahoma, utility officials said.

The storm crippled businesses and schools while hampering response efforts by emergency workers.

An estimated 226,000 people within the Tulsa area were without power for some time, utility officials said. That figure represents nearly 80 percent of the customers served by the American Electric Power-Public Service Company of Oklahoma within the Tulsa area, said Ed Bettinger, AEP-PSO spokesman.

Restoring power in the Tulsa area cost an estimated $92.8 million, Bettinger said.

Meanwhile, the storm caused an estimated $780 million in damages to the property of residential utility customers, according to a report by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.

Police officers, firefighters and utility workers remained on the job despite the daunting weather conditions, rescuing people and restoring power for Tulsa, Jenks, Sand Springs, Broken Arrow and surrounding areas.

The Tulsa World interviewed first responders, business owners and residents to learn how they are better prepared for future ice storms. The lessons learned by emergency responders caused one agency to spend $10,000 to double the size of its emergency operations center. Meanwhile, a local ambulance service replaced all the tires on its fleet of 36 ambulances.

"Our fleet manager noticed that our tires did not perform as they should on the ice," said Tina Wells, spokeswoman for EMSA ambulance service. "After the ice storm, he replaced them on the entire fleet to improve the traction in the future."

Mike McCool, director of Tulsa Area Emergency Management Agency, stressed the need for area residents to be responsible for their own preparation for inclement weather.

"What we learned is that the citizens, generally speaking, are not prepared for an ice storm and they need to get prepared," McCool said. "The citizens shouldn't expect the emergency response system to come and rescue all of them. We have a response plan, but the citizens must help out and be prepared in their homes."

McCool said area residents need to keep a disaster supply kit in their homes and have a disaster plan that includes home safety, food supplies and alternative housing arrangements.

"They also need to be educated about the use of alternative heating sources and the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning,'' McCool said.

Kelly Deal, director of EMSA's disaster responses, said emergency workers treated 150 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning, with more than 100 people being transported for hospital care.

Tulsa resident Tony Laizure said his family is better prepared this year. Laizure lives at 1543 Swan Drive and his home was without power for more than a week last year.

"This year, we thought ahead and we have made arrangements with a friend to keep our essentials turned on so we can avoid losing all the power,'' Laizure said. "Without power, we lost our heat and all of our food."

American Red Cross officials took the lessons it learned from the ice storm and renovated its emergency operations center at 10151 E. 11th St., said Nellie Kelly, spokeswoman for the Tulsa Area Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Kelly said the new center was expanded from a single room with one conference table to a room with 19 work stations. Also, the Red Cross expanded its shelter process under a program known as "Ready When the Time Comes," Kelly said.

During the ice storm, the Tulsa Area Red Cross opened 35 shelters in 12 of the 18 counties that it covers. The opening of 35 shelters was the largest sheltering operation in the history of the local chapter, Kelly said.

"What we learned from the ice storm is that we needed to have more shelter agreements in place and we needed to build up our volunteer pool in rural areas," Kelly said. The Red Cross shelter program was expanded by offering training to churches and service groups.

Nursing-home trouble

During the ice storm, 92 nursing homes and facilities for the mentally disabled lost power, mostly in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa metropolitan areas, according to a survey of 281 facilities by the Oklahoma State Department of Health. Many of these facilities had backup generators and restored power quickly. However, 30 facilities did not have a generator on-site while five facilities did not obtain generators in an acceptable time frame until health authorities intervened, said Dorya Huser, chief of long-term care for State Health Department.

Huser said the loss of power at care facilities across Oklahoma raised serious concerns for the department.

"I remember that every day it seemed like 100,000 people were losing power and it was getting frightening because the places that they were being relocated to could lose power," Huser said.

For future ice storms, the state Health Department is emphasizing that facility owners be prepared by having a backup generator or plans to have one put in place. "We are emphasizing that they should not relocate people during an ice storm due to road conditions and the possibility of losing power at the backup location," Huser said.

Burying overhead lines

The ice storm stirred the debate about burying overhead power lines to protect them from ice buildup and falling limbs. While AEP-PSO spends about $20 million a year burying lines, the costs appear to be too prohibitive to bury all the lines, officials said.

It is estimated that it would take $57 billion to bury transmission lines within the state, according to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.

However, that figure is not a practical figure to consider, said Matt Skinner, corporation commission spokesman.

"The $57 billion would involve burying every inch of power lines from the power plant to the house, which is not something that could be done because you can't really bury some of the lines," Skinner said. "This is merely a number to work down from. The key number to focus on is how much does it cost per mile to bury distribution lines within a given area."

AEP-PSO is focusing on new construction and inaccessible areas as part of its program to bury power lines, said Steve Baker, manager of the distribution system for the Tulsa District.

"For new developments, it is standard to bury power lines, but the problem is in existing neighborhoods where right-of-ways are blocked by fences, landscaping or other obstructions," Baker said. "These back-lots locations are difficult to convert to underground but we are working on it as part of our plan to convert these areas."

Burying residential distribution lines costs an estimated $720,000 per mile, up from a previous estimate of $600,000, said Steve Penrose, manager for distribution support for AEP-PSO.

Debris lasts to spring

The ice storm damaged and destroyed thousands of trees within the Tulsa area, creating massive piles of limbs and logs that needed to be cleaned up by the city. The debris pickup ended in May, costing an estimated $24 million, said Paul Strizek, Public Works Department's planning and contracts manager. He said the city expects to be reimbursed $22.2 million from FEMA, the state and the Federal Highway Administration. Thus far, the city has received about $12.9 million, which includes $1.1 million from FEMA for Operation Power Up!'s weatherhead replacement. The weatherhead is the weatherproofed conduit where above-ground electrical wiring enters a house.

The city spent $1.4 million helping restore power, Strizek said.

The debris pickup involved city workers and FEMA contractors collecting an estimated 2.7 million cubic yards of debris, he said.

"It took so long to pick up because there was a lot of debris but there were also problems with residents stacking the debris in the wrong place or the debris was blocked by a car or a gas meter or overhead power line," Strizek said. "Some of this was our fault because we were not clear on our instructions on stacking it for pickup.

"The main thing we learned is that we need to have a FEMA-approved debris management plan in place so we can increase reimbursement from FEMA from 75 percent to 80 percent," Strizek said. "We have a de facto plan in our heads but not a FEMA-approved plan."

Firefighters improvise

Capt. Michael Baker of the Tulsa Fire Department said one of the main lessons learned from the ice storm involved improvising resources and equipment. During the ice storm, the fire department activated its 30 fire stations to respond to house fires and rescue situations. During one shift, a fire station might answer 30 to 50 distress calls, Baker said.

"We typically send four or five units to a house fire, but we learned that was not possible given the magnitude of the disaster,'' Baker said. "We curtailed these responses and sent one or two trucks with a limited crew. This worked, and it allowed us to respond to more calls."

Baker said this aspect of the response allowed the fire department to reassess its overall response plan.

BY THE NUMBERS

Source: PSO and Oklahoma Corporation Commission

Without electricity

262,128
Maximum number of PSO customers out at peak (5:15 p.m., Dec. 10), which was 50 percent of PSO’s total customer base of 525,000.

Work force

The people that worked to restore power:

220
Number of AEP-PSO electrical workers

3,180
Number of other electrical workers, including those from out of state

2,377
Number of tree/vegetation workers

200
Number of other workers

Replacements

189 miles
Amount of distributing electrical conductor that had to be replaced

1,400
Number of distribution poles that had to be replaced

270
Number of distributing pole-mounted transformers that had to be replaced

4,500
Number of street and security lights that had to be replaced

Deaths

29
Ice storm’s death toll

Restoring power

1,411,098
Man-hours spent by AEPPSO, contractors and assisting companies

Nursing homes and other facilities

From Dec. 10 through Dec. 12, 2007

281
Number of nursing homes and facilities for the mentally disabled that were contacted

92
Number of facilities that were without electrical power along the I-44 corridor, mostly in Oklahoma City and Tulsa metropolitan areas

62
Number of facilities that were operating on fuelpowered generators

30
Number of facilities that did not have a generator available or on-site

17
Number of facilities that relocated their residents immediately on Dec. 9

5
Number of facilities that did not obtain generators in an acceptable time frame until health department intervention

Source: Oklahoma State Department of Health

Total costs

$92.8M & $780M
The total cost of restoring power to Tulsa and the estimated damages to the property of residential utility customers.

First of four parts

TODAY | What we learned from the ordeal.

MONDAY | The ice storm, in hindsight.

TUESDAY | Restoring the urban forest.

WEDNESDAY | Readers tell us their stories.

Omer Gillham 581-8301
omer.gillham@tulsaworld.com

Associated Images:

A utility worker works on power lines in downtown Collinsville on Dec. 10, 2007. MIKE SIMONS / Tulsa World file

Tim Carlisle, a maintenance worker for the River Parks Authority, moves tree limbs from the walking track on the Pedestrian Bridge near 31st Street and Riverside Drive on Dec. 11, 2007. Cory Young / Tulsa World file

Source: The Weather Channel, USA Today

BRAD THOMPSON, DAVID HOUSH / Tulsa World