When severe weather and outages happen, our line workers are on the front lines restoring power to customers. But did you know there is a full team of employees working behind the scenes to support the restoration effort?

Our team shifts and takes on new roles when a large storm occurs – whether in summer, fall, winter or spring. This is part of our Incident Command System or ICS. This is the emergency response framework used by first responders to coordinate effective and efficient restoration once a significant event has occurred. We use the structure at I&M when we have widespread outages to organize and communicate safe and timely restoration of power.

Managing Resources & Getting Crews on the Ground

A big task during storms: arranging hotel rooms and meals for crews on the ground. During the June 2022 derecho, frontline workers required nearly 900 hotel rooms in 40 different hotels across three states. Securing the rooms, assigning them to employees and making changes on the fly is a full-time job. That’s where an employee designated as the logistics team coordinator comes in to play.

The logistics team also coordinates with other groups to tackle responsibilities beyond lodging, including:

• Securing materials: making sure the supply of poles, wire, transformers and other equipment remain stocked’
• Coordinating with AEP’s Emergency Preparedness and Resiliency and Regional Mutual Assistance Groups to secure mutual aid resources’
• Staging: setting up base camps with restrooms and parking for an influx of trucks.
• Important safety logistics: clearing snow from facilities and ordering plenty of salt and ice melt.

Maintaining The Fleet

Line workers and other frontline employees depend on our trucks to safely restore power. That’s why proper upkeep of our trucks is critical. Employees from our Fleet Department provide that support.  

Storms can damage vehicles with falling trees, off-road driving, broken wipers and more. Fleet personnel repair and return trucks to excellent condition at the end of each day so they’re ready the next morning. Fleet teams, along with field crews, work longer days to handle the increased need and provide onsite support.

Prioritizing Resources

The engineers and technicians who normally design the facilities needed to provide electrical service switch roles during storms. Some start assessing storm damage and determining the materials and resources needed to make repairs. Technicians will travel to the heart of the storm to provide support. Like our line crews, they put in long days to manage the huge amount of labor required to report and prioritize restoration work.

Assessing The Damage

It’s all-hands-on-deck when it comes to assessing damage from a summer or winter storm. Meter electricians, customer design technicians and network mechanics are among the few employees who switch roles to form two-person teams patrolling our lines. As storm assessors, they investigate major issues on our circuits.

Meter specialists become critical liaisons for contract crews – “bird dogs” who know the area best. They guide crews to job sites, transporting materials along with using their company radios and mapping resources.

Supply Management

Poles, wires, transformers, crossarms, insulators – these materials are needed to replace equipment damaged during a storm. Storeroom employees, who typically support general maintenance and planned work, switch to an on-demand response role. They handle immediate needs that pour in to replace equipment.

Dispatching

The Distribution Dispatching Center (DDC) is the nerve center for tracking outages and routing crews 24/7, 365 days a year. During a storm, it’s abuzz of activity with employees answering calls. To help with the restoration effort, dispatchers often work longer shifts.

Dispatchers play an important role in directing crews to areas where repair work will benefit the greatest number of customers. They monitor maps and make frequent updates so customers know restoration status and crews aren’t assigned to an outage that’s already been fixed. Dispatchers also keep in touch police and fire dispatchers who call in hazards – like downed power lines.

Keeping Customers Informed

At AEP and I&M, we have a digital customer care team that fields inquiries from customers via social media channels. During storms, customer activity can increase to 100 times normal volume, sustained over several days. During the June 2022 derecho, care specialists triaged about 1,100 social media conversation for I&M, in addition to more than 20,000 across AEP territories. To support customers and our communities, care specialists and AEP’s Enterprise Social Media Team work extended hours during storms to answer questions, pass along restoration updates and escalate hazards, while ensuring normal questions about billing, payment extensions and other general account information aren’t overlooked.

When a major storm hits, all six of AEP’s call centers – including one in Fort Wayne – band together to handle an increase in customer calls. Call center representatives work longer hours as well to help customers stay informed during a storm. Also, customer service professionals work long hours, sometimes even days after the storm passes and power is restored, to help customers with any questions or concerns. During storms, customer service professionals also point out priority customers or businesses that are critical to every day community operations such as hospitals, fire and police departments and wastewater treatment plants.

During a storm we also value communication with local cities, government officials and county emergency management teams. That’s when our External Affairs managers and governmental affairs mangers shine, working 24/7 to ensure community stakeholders have up-to-date communication.

Employees’ Families

While we have thousands of employees working during storm restoration, we also have thousands of our employees’ family members and friends who offer support. With employees dedicated to restoring power to customers and the communities we serve, their family members and friends often go without seeing them long periods of time. This is especially true when our teams volunteer to help restore communities away from home.

Just know that when severe weather hits – no matter if it’s day or night, winter or summer – I&M and our thousands of employees will do whatever it takes to get power restored to your home or business.