Storm drill helps FirstEnergy prepare for severe weather events
By going through a combined emergency preparation drill, FirstEnergy Pennsylvania Electric Company said it hopes employees will be ready to restore services should severe weather cause outages this summer.
FirstEnergy PA, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp., held the emergency preparation drill to test its storm restoration process for its heavily forested service areas. Employees from West Penn Power and Penn Power in western and central Pennsylvania participated in the annual storm drill both remotely and in person at West Penn Power’s Greensburg headquarter. Officials said the drill was took the hybrid approach to simulate how employees conduct real-life restoration activities using electronic storm tools to manage work in the field. The drill prepared employees for storm restoration duties and helps employees prepare restoration processes and storm-management tools.
“Storm drills provide our employees a controlled, no-fault forum to practice and sharpen their skills in preparation for severe weather, including summer thunderstorms packing strong wind gusts,” John Hawkins, President of FirstEnergy’s Pennsylvania Operations, said. “Regular emergency drills are another way we work to improve electric service for our customers, in addition to tree trimming and projects we do to harden our electric infrastructure and enhance its resiliency.”
The drill focused on severe weather with organized lines of thunderstorms capable of producing 70 mile per hour or greater gusts of wind. In the scenario, trees toppled causing damage to poles and wires, and disrupting service to more than 425,000 West Penn Power customers and more than 100,000 Penn Power customers.
The scenario was further complicated by damage to batteries, battery chargers and other equipment at two electric substations.
