David Latona: Welcome to Co-op Conversations with DEMCO, where we dive into the topics that impact your power,
your co-op, and your community. I'm David Latona, your host.
In our last episode, we talked about storm readiness and all the behind the scenes work that goes into
preparing our system year-round.
That preparation is not just over a couple of weeks.
Today we're diving into what happens after the storm, the power restoration process.
Back with me today is Mr. Mark Phillips, DEMCO's Chief Engineering and Operations Officer.
Mark, thanks again for joining us today.
Mark Phillips: Yeah, excited to be here.
David Latona: All right. Good. So once that storm passes, Mark, what conditions are necessary for our crews to
respond safely?
Mark Phillips: Depending on the type of weather that we've just experienced, we attack each one differently,
right? So from a hurricane perspective, we don't allow our linemen to go up in the bucket until at least,
you know, the winds have dropped below 35 miles an hour, right?
It's just it's too dangerous in that environment or at that time.
In some regards, floodwaters, right. Floodwaters have to recede.
We have areas of our system that take on water pretty easily.
So it's not always a hurricane; it could be just an afternoon thunderstorm that dumps an enormous
amount of rainfall on the ground, and it all flows down.
It seems like it's all headed to Lake Maurepas.
So the water rises fast down there and we have to be able to safely go through that.
And hey, we have boats. We have access to airboats and drones and all the other cool things.
But our employee safety is really the most important.
And that gives us an opportunity to get out there and start doing some, you know, damage assessments. That takes time.
You know, we talked in the last episode about, you know, we service 9,200 miles of line and depending on the
impact, you have to look at that.
You can't just take for granted that you know that everything is okay.
You have to put eyes on it. So we do a lot of damage and safety assessments to protect the public and our members from any downed
power lines or broken poles. And then once we get a good all clear for an opportunity to go to work,
well, then we'll start sending our crews out to start doing the restoration.
David Latona: That's great. It's just overwhelming to me.
9,200 miles of line, that's a tremendous amount.
And I've seen it firsthand, your team working.
And that assessment is not just a notebook and a pencil.
It is very technologically savvy, and it takes a lot of decisions as to how to attack that
outage best. Walk me through that, how that decision is made.
Where do you work first in a restoration?
Mark Phillips: Yes, so there's a process, right?
It's kind of like the old saying you can't have one without the other,
right. And that's the kind of way we approach outage restoration.
The first thing we look at is our transmission lines to ensure that they're all energized and up in all clear.
From there, we go to the substation level, right.
The substation actually takes that transmission voltage, and it,
you know, it steps it down to usable voltage for our transformers on the distribution line.
So the substations have to be up, and we kind of have to have the all clear there.
And then from there we start getting into the distribution facilities, right. That's the lines that reach into our
communities, right. Reach into our neighborhoods. So those lines we ensure that the major backbone infrastructure,
that's our you know, it could be real technical here, but that's our three phase.
Once it's up, and we get the all clear there, then the little taps that pull off – it's like a river and some
tributaries, right. You got the main river, and then you have the little Amite Rivers and Comite rivers.
So once we've got all of the main line three phase, we start looking at those. And it really depends on,
you know, the impact, you know, how much that line is impacting the community, how many members
are affected? We prioritize it that way, right.
So we want to get the the biggest chunk on the quickest, right.
So we attack those, and then we'll work our way all the way down to the smaller taps,
and then the individuals, right.
David Latona: That's great. I know that that comparison helps me, and I know that three phase,
that's when I look up and there's three major lines that work in tandem to deliver a larger amount of power.
And then those taps are something that comes off and into a service to a home.
Some of those underground, some overhead, but nonetheless that service gets smaller when it goes from that
substation all the way down to that meter on a home or business.
Mark Phillips: That's correct.
David Latona: Yeah. So why is that sequence so important?
Talk to me about the end of the line and the beginning of the line.
What helps the power delivery when you go in that order?
Mark Phillips: It's kind of like I mentioned just before.
You can't have one without the other. So if I start at the back of the line,
but the front of the line is impacted, well, I can't get the electricity to flow through the damaged
part, right? We do have devices down the line.
So as we're looking and assessing if we can open up a switch that isolates damaged portions of the line,
we can energize up to that point while we work on this part.
So, you know, not as many members are impacted.
Same goes for the other way. If it's the other side of the damage, if I have a loop feed coming around the backside,
I could actually close the switch from a different feeder and back feed and then really minimize the impact of that outage.
So the sequencing is the most important part, because I can't deliver power to the end of the line
at the front of the line.
David Latona: That's a good point. So if there's a tree that is knocked out of line coming right out of a substation,
but your team makes the repair to the end of that line, well, there's no power in the line anyway.
So you've got to start at that.
Mark Phillips: That's correct.
David Latona: And that's great. Good to hear, too, that the sectionalizing devices might play a greater role in
getting folks on than even the damage that's on the line.
It's just helpful in getting those members back.
Mark Phillips: You know, it's really important that we don't skip any of the steps,
right, that we have outlined for our linemen to follow, because it can definitely create a very unsafe environment
for the public and for the members and for our linemen, if we don't have full control of that line.
So by following the order, right, the order of merit there to get to the end result,
it ensures the safety of both the public, our members, which are our members,
and our linemen.
David Latona: That's great. You know, and just to remind our listeners, you know, our mission includes safety,
reliability and cost effective. So safety is certainly paramount,
Mark Phillips: Number one.
David Latona: In that delivery process. That's good.
So let's dive into operations a little bit.
How is the work coordinated? You know, it sounds like a massive job to me.
When I remember Ida, you know, "the worst natural disaster to hit our system" DEMCO system.
How is that? I mean, how do you just wrap your mind around the beginning of that,
that coordinating that work?
Mark Phillips: Yeah. So you bring up Ida. It was the largest storm to ever impact our service territory in
regards to restoration and the amount of people that we had in here.
And it is such a massive job. You know, our control center operates 24 /7,
365. There's no days off in there because we're monitoring the grid around the clock and literally around the clock.
There is never a time when a systems operator is not sitting in front of our outage management system,
monitoring the grid to ensure that all of our members have power.
Having that bird's eye view of our system allows us to address, you know,
outages as they come in. And those outages come in so many different ways:
phone calls, text messages, our equipment in the field tells us that the lights are out before the member calls in some regards.
B ut we do rely on the member a lot to call in and tell us when their lights are out.
And that outage management system is taking all of those different avenues and it's dumping into one spot.
And it's kind of helping the map predict where the problems are so that we can address and send those linemen to the
source of the problem, which is the front of the line, which is where they're taught to start because of those order of
operations that we talked about a little while, about restoring power. Put you in the front,
starting from front to back.
David Latona: That's great. And it really, it shows how historically that restoration time has changed because of
efficiencies, technologies. Just we're growing in what we know about power delivery.
And then the equipment also is advancing too.
Mark Phillips: Yeah. So and just to add, I mean our control center is, it is driven around technology.
Like it is so impressive how all that stuff orchestrates and works together.
Some of the stories you'll get from some of our old timers that are still in there;
I won't say that have left, but they're still in there, you know,
think about it. You're taking a phone call, you're writing an outage down on a card, and you're putting that
card on a table. You don't have a map to look at.
You're kind of organizing it amongst where the phone calls are coming from. Think about how inefficient that was.
But that was the time and how we've grown since then.
To now, you know, the map is telling us not a phone call or a card or an area is telling us.
You know, we're getting it, you know, from the grid at that point of delivery.
David Latona: So good.
Mark Phillips: Pretty amazing.
David Latona: So I know we get a lot of questions, a lot of FAQs, if you will.
So let's take a dive into that proverbial member mailbag.
You know, we get these questions a lot.
Specifically after storms, one in particular, and I know this might be a little painful because we understand
the truth behind the curtain, right. But why don't we have enough DEMCO crews to handle everything ourselves?
Mark Phillips: Well, I'll go back to Hurricane Ida.
You know where we had over 1,200, you know, linemen come from out of state.
It's just not efficient or economically effective to maintain that many employees around the
clock. So we have just the right amount of employees to pretty much do our day to day and do small storm responses.
You know, there's a lot of times, we'll have an afternoon thunderstorm that'll get us pretty good.
But we don't need the resources from the outside because we can maintain. Just the the cost associated with employing that
many folks and then having enough for them to do every day when there's not a storm.
David Latona: Yeah.
Mark Phillips: You know that could be challenging.
So it's just, I think we have the perfect balance, the perfect mix.
And knowing that you can pick up the phone call and just get that co-op from 50 miles next door or 50 miles south or
50 miles to east, west. And they'll come that day, and you just kind of employ them as needed,
because when that major weather event hits, you know, it takes a long time to just build one structure and
put one structure in the ground. But in the event of a storm, I mean,
we're changing out hundreds of poles, right where it may take you all day with your crews today to do
one. You know, so it's just speed of recovery, right?
I think you just you bring the extra resources in for the recovery part because you can get it done quicker.
David Latona: Yeah. And you know, storms exist and they happen, but it's not the majority of our time is the storm response.
So I could see how staffing for the most you might ever need in the worst natural disaster is not efficient.
Right.
Mark Phillips: Not at all.
David Latona: That's not being a good steward of our members finances, right.
But that, I've seen that in action, that brotherhood, when they come in and help us out and same us
helping them. It's so valuable. And also there's a certain nuance to a cooperative infrastructure that they
understand. So they're coming in with some similar terminology.
So when they go through our safety check, our orientation with them,
they understand a lot of the terminology.
I've seen those guys come in, and they know what to do.
They just need you to get them to the spot that needs the attention.
Mark Phillips: Yeah. We love the mutual aid assistance because like I said, it's an extension of DEMCO.
David Latona: Yeah.
Mark Phillips: Right. They're here to provide a service to restore communities just like they do when they're back home.
So there's a lot of value, a lot of self, you know, worth that they bring in providing that service to our
communities because they provide it at home as well.
David Latona: And I know another common question which can sometimes seem like the opposite.
Why can't I see crews in my area?
My power's out. I don't see anybody working.
You said you got crews here. You know the answer to that.
I want you to explain some of that, some of those reasons why that equipment and those men are
somewhere else, but they're working on your power.
Mark Phillips: Yeah. So we talked earlier about the order of restoration.
Right. So if our transmission lines are damaged, well then those guys are working on our transmission lines.
And, you know, we're a rural utility.
I mean, we're in most people's backyards.
We're cutting through pastures. We're not next to the highway or next to the road.
We're some, in some instances, miles off of the road.
So a lot of times they're isolated.
Right. Like, yeah, you may not see them because you're in the subdivision over across the street down the road,
but the subdivision where the line starts, as we mentioned earlier,
where it's coming through, they may be working in there.
You know, maybe you don't see a DEMCO logo on the truck, but you see a bucket truck,
right? That bucket truck could be working for us because we do bring so many outside resources in during some of these major,
major weather events.
David Latona: That's true. Look, as a member myself, I appreciate the fact that,
you know, my power goes out sometimes, too when there's inclement weather,
there's an auto accident, or something.
But rarely do I see a DEMCO vehicle when my lights come back on.
So I know that those guys are working somewhere else, and that's great.
I want them to work safe and efficient, and we know that there's a system in place with 9,200 miles of
line. The odds are you're not going to see them when they're working on your power,
like you said, working on your subdivision.
So here's one that comes in often.
Why does my neighbor have power and I do not?
Mark Phillips: That's a great question, David. It's the way that the line has been designed.
A lot of times, you know, we have our main lines coming in, then we'll have switches and taps.
If we didn't put isolation switches or reclosers or sectionalizing equipment on the line,
then the smallest outage would cause an enormous impact to the area.
So rather than, you know, affecting 1,200 members, let's just say that's associated with a feeder.
I may have a tap that has two people on it.
Well, I'll put a sectionalizing device at the feeder at the source,
and it will actually open and and clear to prevent from impacting everybody in that area.
And sometimes this could be, you know, across the street from you.
So you could have power and your neighbor across the street couldn't and vice versa.
And it's because we're trying to minimize the impact of outages.
So we sectionalize our grid to support that.
And the finer we can tune it, you know, as we're getting, you know,
we're diving deeper and deeper into our reliability and our resiliency and our hardening,
we're trying to minimize the impact of an event that causes an outage of it impacting the entire community and just isolating
it. So you're probably just isolated because the problem is associated with you or you and your neighbor or you and a few of
your neighbors. But the feeder actually may support 1,500, 1,400,
1,500 people. And we don't want – that takes a lot of time for the linemen to ride that and look at that.
If we can pinpoint the location of the problem, we can restore it quicker,
which we do very well.
David Latona: That's a great point. And as I understand in that loop, sometimes the neighbor that's out this time and
others are on, it's going to be reversed because that sectionalizing device is there.
It's keeping them safe, but also when the damage is elsewhere on that line,
you're going to be on. The alternative is everybody's out.
Nobody wants that.
Mark Phillips: No, sir.
David Latona: So, Mark, I know there's so many more things that are involved with that emergency management that
is your task during those responses, but we did cover a lot of what our members are interested in.
Maybe we can have you back again to speak more in depth about some of these,
but thank you for sharing with us.
It's clear that DEMCO's commitment to safety and reliability is a nonstop,
year-round process. For members listening, be sure to visit DEMCO.org/stormcenter and
download your Hurricane Preparedness Checklist, which is a great resource for any storm,
any situation. And there are other storm prep resources there for your pets and safety information too.
Thanks for tuning in to Co-op Conversations with DEMCO.
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For Mark Phillips, I'm David Latona.
Let's keep the conversation going.