When Hurricane Irene hits — or brushes by — Delaware, residential customers may or may not lose electrical service, Delmarva Power says. But, if the lights go out and the fridge gets warm, be prepared for outages that could last a couple of days, Delmarva spokeswoman Bridget Shelton says.
“We know this is going to be a multi-day event,” Shelton said. “In everything we have put out [to customers and the news media], we’ve sent that signal. Customers should be prepared to be without power for multiple days.”
How does the utility decide which power outages get fixed first?
First, Shelton explained, Delmarva has two service regions — the Bay Region, based in Salisbury, Md., which serves Kent and Sussex counties and most of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, and the New Castle Region, which covers New Castle County and Cecil and Harford counties in Maryland.
“Mutual assistance crews” from utilities in nearby states that are outside Irene’s path began arriving Friday morning and will be deployed to the areas of greatest need in those regions. “We won’t know where until the storm has left,” Shelton said.
The crews, she said, have two types of personnel: assessors, who figure out the extent of the damage, and linemen, who return the power lines to service. Depending on the severity of the storm, it could take up to 24 hours to assess the damage before actual restoration of the outages begins, she said.
Two Question Interview
With Art Pleasanton, owner of Faifax Hardware, where customers were lined up outside the door before the store opened at 8 a.m. Friday to stock up on essentials before the storm arrives. We caught up with Art shortly after noon Friday.
What have customers been buying today?
Batteries, flashlights, battery backups for sump pumps, generators, oil lamps, candles, duct tape.
What items have sold out?
Pretty much everything.
The basic rule in restoring service is to start by doing the work that will restore power to the greatest number of people first. “It’s similar to when you get a big snowstorm and I-95 gets plowed before John Doe’s street in Hicksville, USA,” she said.
That means the work starts with any downed main transmission lines that bring power to thousands of customers. Then, it’s on to the substations fed by the main lines, to repair or replace any damaged transformers. Next are the main distribution lines fed by the substation, then the secondary lines that go into neighborhoods and finally, what Shelton calls “the onesies and the twosies” that serve individual homes and businesses.
It comes down to this: the larger the area affected by the outage, the faster Delmarva will restore teams to restore power there. Those isolated “onesies and twosies” come last.
But there are facilities that get top priority, like hospitals and 9-1-1 call centers, she said. If they lose power, they go to the top of the list. Nursing homes, assisted living centers, fire halls and police stations also get special attention. Many of these facilities, she noted, do have back-up power sources, but generators and the like do not supply power indefinitely.
Most perishable foods will remain safe to eat if kept in a closed refrigerator for up to 24 hours, Shelton said, but she recommends purchasing dry ice in case outages last longer.
Related story: Learn more about where and when to get dry ice here.
Customers should also have surge protectors to prevent damage to computers and other expensive electronic equipment. Other emergency preparedness tips are available at the utility’s website. “It is incumbent on the customer to take these steps,” she said.
If Hurricane Irene does cause you to lose power for a couple of days, don’t expect to get a break on your next electric bill.
A major storm beyond the utility’s control “could be called ‘an act of God,’” Shelton said, and, in such cases, “we cannot guarantee uninterrupted service and therefore we are forgiven” by the state Public Service Commission.
