Outages. Obviously, they peaked last night somewhere around 7:00 at about
180,000 across two states. We're making tremendous progress today. We're down
below 40,000. At this time. It'll take a few more days. We have extensive
damage across the system. 90 mile an hour winds, trees. As you can see here,
the guys are replacing the pole here behind us. And this is just what's
going on every day for us now,
in terms of getting the power back on, Is it as simple as just, you know,
connecting some liars or is a little bit more complex? And if so, can you
explain what that complexities look like? You bet, Of course, On our
restoration, we'll always go to the largest outage first, trying to get the
greatest group of customers back on. So we're evaluating that, um, when we come
in here to do these polls, we've got trees on top of them. We've got wire
down and just a lot of manual work to get to that part of it. And as you get
later in the storm, things move just a little bit slower because the work is
much more difficult. I know that this was forecasted in terms of the winds,
but did you guys expect power outages? At least to the degree that we have? We
expected power outages. What we were uncertain of was 90 mile an hour winds.
Those are significant, and there's very, very few systems that would hold up as
well as ours did under those conditions.
Did some areas get hit harder than others?
There are a few areas that are seeing less damage, but the entire territory
was evenly spread out.
Okay, I was doing this kind of work at night. Difficult, more difficult than
it would be during the day. To the degree I might expect. Absolutely
restoration overnight is challenging. Everything has to be walked with for
the assessment. And it just takes a lot of time in the evening. But I will tell
you, our folks did a tremendous job overnight restoring power to talk about
the number of cruise number of workers, number of people per shift, things like
that.
Yes, internally, we have a full staff at energy. We're in the middle of the
week, so we have everybody on the property.
We have about 400 line contractors, about 300 vegetation contractors, and
we have additional offsite Utilities and contractors coming in to help over
the next day or two. I'm just curious about that. I think of the winds and
stuff. You had all these outages, but I'm assuming it's unsafe for your beat
up on church. But let's warm at 80 mph in weight. Families come down. I'm sure
there were times the wind was blowing so hard that we couldn't see and just
couldn't get some of the polls. We couldn't even set our polls at that
time. But as soon as the wind subsided, we're ready to go.
Can you speak to the patients of customers? I I know, you know, some of
them say I've been calling and getting these text messages and and, you know,
dog on it. We're sitting here in the dark and it's cold. We certainly
understand that we're working really hard to get to the customers. Um, if
they see something on stage we'd like for him to call in if they're afraid
that, uh, we haven't responded. It's okay to call in, but we have a pretty
good system. We know who's out and we are just going after the biggest
outages first so we can get the largest group of people on. But please be
patient. We know it's uncomfortable, but we'll be there soon, Jamie. And how
long you've been with averaging? I've been with average e about 20 years.
Based on what you've seen in the past, where do you rank this? As far as
concerns and demanded immediate response. This is significant. This was
one of the most challenging storms that we've had to deal with in our history
as a combined company. I can say that as well. How does this compare with,
you know, we're finally feeling like winter. How does it compare to ice
damage? I'm glad that we're not having ice. That wind is so sick was so
significant last night. We would be having a different conversation today
if I said accompanied this this is better. In some ways the damage is done.
And once the wind subsides, ice will give you a lot of damage over a number
of days. Do you know how many calls came down or how many wires, cables and
all We just have some rough estimates, right? now, but we have hundreds of
poles down in both states. We have miles of wire. We're trying to isolate
that the best we can and again get the most customers on around that. Do you
have any concerns that you would hear about all these supply chain issues?
You guys have adequate supplies to take care of everybody we do believe. So
we're moving it back and forth across our territories were doing a very good
job of that. So right now we're having to watch everything very closely. But
we think we're getting the right material at the right location at the
right time.
Yeah.
Gaming message to customers that may have lines or poles in their yard. What
would you What would you tell them? Good question. So from a safety
perspective, we just ask the customers to please. If they have lines down in
their yard or something that looks concerning, please stay away from it.
Keep kids out the pets, whatever is going on there. And if they have a
concern, please call into the to the average line, and we will do our best
to get somebody out there as soon as we have someone available, and I just want
to re ask a question, just to make sure captures it. But this is a very complex
work that you're them that these folks are doing. Can you explain? Just for
folks who may not understand just what goes into this? What you guys are
dealing with?
Yes. Our folks are doing an incredible job. Of course, they're highly trained
to do this work. Um, it doesn't. That doesn't appear when you watch them that
it's too complex, but they train for years to do this. Um, I've got to get
an assessment on it. We have specifications for everything that
we're building. Um, as you can see, this one behind us right here. Uh,
that's partially Emmanuel set. So they brought this pole in with a very, very,
very small, you know, and brought it in, said it by hand. They're climbing the
poles so physically, it's very demanding, but they're doing an
outstanding thank you. Mhm. So it's forecasting. But you guys expected,
however, it is the latter the states that we expected outages. It was hard
to imagine what would happen with 90,000 mile an hour winds and where
exactly it would it would occur.
The last thing I've got pushed. Andrew told us a lot about the progress that
you made over.
Have numbers as to where you were, where you are, right? Can we just
reflect for the hard work of risky? You bet. Last night, I think around six or
7:00, we were just shy of 190,000 customers without power. In this
relatively short time, we have dropped below 40,000 right now across two
states. So we are making significant progress.
A lot of hard work. It's very, very difficult work.
Anything else?
Thank you. One more. Thank you. Thanks, guys.