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THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
DATE: January 16, 1996 MATTER OF RECORD
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Ronald A. Wetter, Public Affairs Representative, Diablo
Division, PG&E, spoke on the utility , company's response to the
December 1995 storm, the service restoration process, and what was
learned to improve PG&E's storm response in the future. Mr.
Wetter invited Board Members to visit the Detroit facility at any
time to view the technology and procedures in place to allow PG&E
personnel to respond expeditiously to emergencies and loss of
utility services caused by storms of the magnitute as the one of
last December.
THIS IS A MATTER FOR RECORD PURPOSES ONLY
NO FORMAL BOARD ACTION TAKEN
cc: County Administrator
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Pacific Gas and Electric Company Diablo Division Gregg L.Lemler
1030 Detroit Avenue Manager
January 11, 1996 Concord,CA 94518-2487
RECEIVED
Jeff Smith, -
Chair of the Board of Supervisors
Contra Costa County I
651 Pine Street
Martinez, CA 94533 CLERK BOARD OF HS(JPERVCSCRs t
p CONTRA COSTA Co j
° Dear Chairman Smith:
On Tuesday, January 16, Pacific Gas & Electric Company will present to the Board of
Supervisors information on the Company's response to the severe wind and rain storm
experienced by our customers in Contra Costa County and throughout the Company's
service area last month. We appreciate this opportunity to share our experiences and
lessons with you.
I am enclosing for the Board's information a package of information that provides you
with some additional insight about the Company's storm response, the magnitude of
the storm, and most importantly, what PG&E has learned and what it is doing to
strengthen its storm response procedures and practices. We will discuss some of this
material in more detail on January 16.
Enclosed are the following items:
• Copy of flip charts to be used by PG&E during its presentation;
• Copy of PG&E's January 3, 1996, letter to Board Chairwoman Gayle Bishop
conveying PG&E storm related information,to the Board;
• Copy of PG&E President and Chief Operating Officer Robert D. Glynn, Jr.'s,
prepared comments presented before the California Assembly Utilities and
Commerce Committee and California State Senate Energy, Utilities and
Communications Committee Joint Information Hearing on January 4, 1996;
• PG&E brochure entitled: Storm Tips—Don't Be Left In The Dark;
• Portion of a PG&E operating manual describing PG&E's electric operating
system, how electric outages occur in stormy weather, and how PG&E prioritize
its efforts to restore electric service as quickly and safely as possible.
Mr. Ronald Wetter, Public Affairs Representative for Diablo Division, will present
PG&E's report to the Board. Mr. George Schauer, Diablo Division Construction and
Maintenance Director, will also be attending the meeting to answer any technical
questions concerning the Company's electric operations practices within the county.
Our presentation will take approximately fifteen minutes.
If you have any questions, please free to call me directly at (510) 674-6511.
Sincerely,
GLL:aaml '
Enclosures
PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY'S RESPONSE TO
THE DECEMBER 1995 STORM
ASSEMBLY UTILITIES AND COMMERCE COMMITTEE
AND
SENATE ENERGY, UTILITIES AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
Joint Informational Hearing
January 4, 1996
by
ROBERT D. GLYNN, JR.
PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY
The hurricane strength winds and torrential rains of mid-December caused enormous and
widespread damage to our electric system infrastructure, with an unprecedented number of
poles, transmission towers, transformers and miles of electric wire destroyed. Over
1.7 million of our 4.4 million customers suffered service interruptions. With our field crews
working around the clock, within 48 hours of the onset of the storms 85% of customers
affected had service restored, with power restored to 99.9% of customers within six days.
PG&E crews performed admirably and restoration of service was achieved very well
considering the major damage that occurred.
The following addresses the physical aspects of.the storm damage and restoration,
communications with our customers, as well as the items raised by Assemblywoman
Martinez in her December 20, 1995 letter concerning historical workforce levels,
maintenance repairs, and remedies.
THE DECEMBER STORM
On December 11 and 12, Northern California experienced an extreme storm. "Gale-force
winds ripped out windows, tore down a forest's worth of trees, sank more than a dozen
boats, shut down bridges, carried off cars and created commuting nightmares."
(San Francisco Chronicle 12/13/95, p. Al) The Bay Area Air Quality Management District's
Kregor Peak anemometer was sheared off from winds surpassing 102 mph. There were
also some hurricane-force winds ranging up to 134 mph reported in.the greater Bay Area
and along the northern coast.
THE PHYSICAL DAMAGE THE STORM INFLICTED ON PG&E'S SYSTEM
There is nothing more disastrous to a utility system than wind. An estimated total of
1.7 million PG&E electric customers were without power as a result of the violent storm.
Forty transmission towers and 120 transmission poles went down (compared to two towers
and 86 transmission poles in the January storm, and one tower and no transmission poles
in the March storm). Also in this December storm a total of 1,490 distribution poles were
downed (compared to 650 in the January storm and 930 in the March storm). The total
length of line down was 450 miles (compared to 220 in January and 165 in March). And we
lost 943 transformers in December (compared to 600 in January and 385 in March).
THE WORK EFFORT REQUIRED TO REPAIR THE DAMAGE
Nonetheless, within 48 hours, 85% of PG&E's customers who lost electric service had
power restored to their homes or businesses. Within three days, 93% were restored; and
restoration to all affected customers was virtually complete within six days.
The efforts of PG&E's employees and those of mutual aid companies and contractors were
nothing less than heroic. More than 3,700 people were outside working in the high winds
and driving rain, removing thousands of trees and heavy tree limbs tangled in electric
wires, telephone wires and cable TV wires. Mutual aid workers (74 crews of several
employees each) were called in within the first 12 hours from Southern California Edison,
San Diego Gas & Electric, PacifiCorp and Sierra Pacific.
The total workforce was about 500 more than the peak workforce in the field during last
winter's storms, with 48 more crews from neighboring utilities.
During the duration of the restoration, mutual aid was ultimately provided by San Diego
Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, City of Healdsburg, City of Palo Alto,
Western Area Power Administration, City of Roseville, City of Lodi, City of Alameda,
Modesto Irrigation District and Anderson Electric - Independent Contractor.
Crews worked around the clock, with employees working up to 18 hour shifts, before
_catching some sleep while in the field. For several days, material was rolling in and out of
service centers continuously, including poles, crossarms, guy assemblies, insulators,
transformers and various types of wire. Gas transmission and distribution employees were
added to electric crews, doing a variety of chores except actually working on lines, thereby
increasing the productivity of our electric crews.
Our priorities in repair and restoration efforts are public safety, communications, and
restoring electric service. After insuring public safety, we focus on those areas and
facilities where the largest number of customers can have their electricity back on in the
shortest possible time. Inevitably some customers experience longer outages than the
majority.
Mangled trees, debris, broken or downed power poles, and miles of wire sagging, severed
and dangling, or lying on the ground, with the possibility of live wire, combine to make the
job of damage assessment, repair and restoration a complex and dangerous one. We are
enormously pleased by the outstanding safety record of our employees during the many
days they were working practically around the clock in the field.
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COMMUNICATIONS WITH OUR CUSTOMERS DURING THE STORM
Inside our call centers, customer service representatives worked long hours to respond to
customers. During the first 24 hours of the storm, the call centers answered almost a
quarter million calls, five times the average daily volume.
Prior to September 1994, PG&E had 31 local offices where customer service
representatives handled calls from customers. Only two of these offices were opened
24 hours per day. None of the 31 offices were linked, so call volume overloads at one
office could not be transferred to and answered at another office.
In 1994, PG&E began providing customers with telephone access to PG&E 24 hours a day,
365 days a year, through a single "800" phone number. This was accomplished by four
linked call centers which provide 24-hour access for customers in four languages. The new
call centers allow PG&E's entire telephone center resources to be used to respond to an
event if necessary.
Since last winter's storms we have added 250 customer service representatives to answer
phones and added 400 new telephone lines to expand our capacity for handling calls to
1,060 simultaneously. We had 1,060 service representatives answering the phones during
the storm, many of them putting in 16- to 18-hour shifts, compared to 712 in January and
March, or roughly a 50 percent increase.. We had more than 2500 news media contacts
during the storm, and ran approximately 2700 radio ads conveying outage information and
estimated restoration times on 95 news-format radio stations throughout the service
territory. Yet our call centers were no match for this storm's staggering call volumes.
Of the 2 million call attempts that AT&T estimated were made on December 12, PG&E
answered 249,000, about five times the average of 50,000 calls handled daily throughout
the year and 74% more calls than on March 9. By comparison, on March 9, 536,000 calls
were attempted and 143,000 calls answered. Even AT&T could not handle all the calls on
December 12, giving many customers a busy signal before they even reached the PG&E
network.
Compounding matters were equipment problems that began when a PG&E
telecommunications tower went down in high winds the morning of December 12. As a
result, our computerized system that relays vital outage information between the field and
the call centers was temporarily disabled. The computer system experienced further
problems during the day, and this restricted the amount of useful information the service
representatives could provide to the customers who did get through. Until all systems were
restored around 7 o'clock that night, service representatives introduced stop-gap
measures, such as getting information directly from the storm centers set up in each
operating division.
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The bottom line is that many of our customers were frustrated in their attempts to get
through to let us know that they were out; and when contact was made, frustration was
compounded, in many instances, by the paucity and inaccuracy of information.
It is our intention to fix the internal systems which failed during this storm so that they will
not fail in a comparable storm in the future. We will also seek to continuously improve the
technology we use and the way we use it. However, it is simply not feasible nor practical to
construct call center operations to meet the level of customer demand faced in extreme
situations such as those experienced in the December 11-12 storm. Attached is a copy of
our January 2, 1996 report to the California Public Utilities Commission on the subject of
our call center performance.
Public safety services, such as fire and police, have direct telephone numbers into the
dispatch centers of our operating Divisions, so that the dispatch centers can shut off gas or
electricity i.n the event of an emergency. Our key contact personnel in our Divisions are
personally accessible, for example by pager, home or office numbers, to elected officials
and provide regular updates. While these systems worked well in most cases, we are
aware of instances where local officials indicated that they could not get through on their
number. We are looking into these instances and will implement remedial actions to
ensure good and timely communications with local emergency service agencies.
PG&E WORKFORCE LEVELS
Over the past ten years, PG&E has reduced its workforce from 28,899 on December 31,
1985 to 20,659 as of December, 1995, with the bulk of the reductions taking place over the
past three years. During the same period, the workforce in electric transmission and
distribution went from 3,823 to 2,391. We have negotiated a "hiring hall" arrangement with
the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and through this have added about
400 temporary workers since mid-1995 to accelerate our maintenance programs, thereby
bringing the total available electric workforce to 2,791.
Workforce reductions reflected the reduced need to perform certain work, and the
opportunity for increased efficiency created by new technology. Since 1991, for example,
new construction hookup work has dropped precipitously, largely due to a decline in new
business construction and improvements in PG&E's work efficiency. Adding to the decline
has been the steady growth in developers opting to install some utility facilities themselves,
as a result of changes in regulations. Consequently, new miles of electric line added to
PG&E's system has dropped 63%, from 2,224 in 1991 to 832 in 1994. In the same period,
new miles of gas line installed dropped 54%, from 569 in 1991 to 263 in 1994. This
dramatic change has significantly reduced the number of construction employees needed
systemwide.
Since January 1993, we have reduced our work force by,about 5900 people, or about 22%.
Many of the reductions were implemented following benchmarking with best practices of
other utilities in the US and elsewhere in the world. As of December, 1995, the net
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reduction in electric field employees was 425, or about 7% of the 5900 total. With
increased reliance on mutual aid crews from neighboring utilities, we had as many electric
field personnel available in December 1995 as we had in January 1993.
PLANT MAINTENANCE PRIOR TO THE EMERGENCY AND PREVENTIVE
MAINTENANCE
Since the January and March 1995 storms, PG&E systematically inspected all of its
overhead distribution system and approximately one-fourth of its underground system. In
addition, over 90% of the primary overhead system was inspected with infrared equipment
which is an effective method to detect potential failures or weaknesses in the overhead
system. Every potential maintenance issue was documented and graded with regard to
safety and timeliness to repair. All safety related items are repaired immediately. All other
items are scheduled in accordance with the nature of maintenance required. PG&E has
also significantly increased its tree trimming efforts both in terms of the number of trees
trimmed and trees removed since the January and March storms.
While our extensive tree-trimming program of the past months, which included
250 additional tree trimming crews since last year's storms, very likely paid off substantially,
no amount of tree trimming could have prevented the devastation caused by this storm.
Trees 20 to 30 feet away were being blown down and into power lines.
In our estimation, no amount of preventive maintenance would have prevented the extent of
the damage PG&E's overhead system sustained during the December wind storm, in which
the high winds and wind driven tree limbs and trees damaged our facilities.
REMEDIES
PG&E's response to claims is framed by two factors. First, it is our responsibility to
exercise reasonable diligence and care in supplying power to our customers; second, we
should not be expected to insure others against the consequences of losing power for other
reasons, such as acts of God. It is simply reality that electric transmission and distribution
facilities are subject to damage by the force of nature, and that in circumstances like
December's storms, extended power outages will result.
PG&E makes information on submitting claims widely available. As of Tuesday morning
January 2, 1996, about 1400 claims from the December storm have already been received.
PG&E will review each and every claim submitted, and we will pay those claims where our
obligation to exercise reasonable diligence and care was not met.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the fierce storm and hurricane strength winds of mid-December presented a
major challenge to the men and women of PG&E, in the face of unprecedented damage to
our electric facilities. They also caused major inconveniences and a lot of frustration
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among our customers. We believe that the maintenance of safety, and the,repair and
power restoration, were well done.
Winter storms will occur again and damage to our electric system is inevitable. We also
believe that, despite the improvements we made to our call centers, there is room for
further improvement. PG&E will continue to work to identify additional areas where
improvements in call center performance, outage reporting and customer information can
be made.
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Pacific Gas and Electric Company Diablo Division
1030 Detroit Avenue
Concord,CA 94518-2487
January 3. 1996
cEN D
Gavle Bishop, Chair of the Board of Supervisors J�N'
Contra Costa County
651 Pine Street.Martinez, CA 94553 RO OF SUPERV►SORS
C1E CO pA COSTA CO•
Dear Chairwoman Bishop:
11 na
Subject: December Storm
As the assigned PG&E representative for Contra Costa County,I wanted to take this opportunity to keep
you informed on the current status of the recent storm.
On December 10, 1995 PG&E experienced one of the most destructive storms of record The combination
of high winds and record rainfall disabled sizable portions of PG&E's electrical distribution system
causing 1.7 million customers to be without power. In Central and East Contra Costa County,we
estimate 127,000 customers were impacted by the storm.
Reviewing our records,we found the overall destructiveness of the storm rivaled the damage caused by the
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In Central and East Contra Costa County alone,the estimated storm
damage to PG&E facilities is valued at$500,000. The storm damaged or destroyed:
O 97 electrical poles
O 63 transformers
O 190 spans of high voltage wire
Q 68 spans of low voltage wire
Q .300 or more electrical services(i.e.,meters,panels, etc.)
PG&E successfully enlisted the assistance of San Diego Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison,and
several other neighboring municipal electric companies during the storm. These companies provided an
additional 218 crew members to augment PG&E's own crews to more rapidly restore power.
On one day,during the height of the.storm, over 2 million customers called PG&E's call center. The .
volume of calls made it difficult to reach a representative to report an outage or to check on the status of
restoration. In this light.for our largest and most sensitive customers there are options in addition to our
call centers. You can call me directly at(510) 674-6352. A message left at this number during an
emergency will automatically have me paged if I am away. Additionally,pressing"0"after-or during your
message will transfer you directly to my secretary. After hours,an answering service can contact a PG&E
representative to serve you. This after hours number is (510)370-2870.Your staff has these numbers on
file.
If I can answer any questions or be of further assistance,please don't hesitate to call.
Sincerely,
Frank Eich
Nlajor Account Representative
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