Penelec Storm Drill Focuses on Efficient Power Restoration to Customers Following Severe Weather
Exercise familiarizes
Individuals participated in the annual storm drill both remotely and in person at Penelec's centrally located facility in
The drill's primary scenario focused on severe weather with organized lines of powerful June thunderstorms capable of producing gusts of greater than 70 mph sweeping across
Further complicating the weather drill was a hypothetical second issue that involved significant damage to circuit breakers and voltage-regulation equipment at two electric substations. Drill participants had to quickly puzzle through the safe and efficient restoration of power to customers in the wake of the storm knowing the substations would not be available. Penelec drill participants broke into groups to address topics including safety, logistics, operations, and planning and analysis, among others.
As part of the training, Penelec activated its Incident Command System (ICS). ICS is a nationally recognized and accepted emergency management process used by all levels of government – federal, state and local – as well as by many non-governmental organizations and the private sector to coordinate the response to major storms or other natural disasters.
In the aftermath of a major weather event, Penelec crews follow a proven restoration process and typically address outages that restore the largest number of customers before moving to more isolated problems. They generally give priority to hospitals and other critical medical facilities, communications facilities and emergency response agencies. After that, crews work to restore power as quickly as possible to the rest of the customers.
For more information about FirstEnergy's storm restoration process and tips for staying safe, visit the 24/7 Power Center at firstenergycorp.com/outages.
Penelec serves approximately 597,000 customers within 17,600 square miles of northern and central
FirstEnergy is dedicated to integrity, safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in
Editor's Note: A photo of FirstEnergy employees conducting a storm drill is available for download on Flickr.
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