Power teams attack outages (Mississippi)
SanLuisObispo Sun ^ | Fri, Sep. 09, 2005 | Don Hammack
GULFPORT - The first meeting of the day in Mississippi Power's impromptu storm center starts at 7 a.m.
Friday, it started a little early because Bobby Kerley, vice president of customer service and marketing, saw everybody ready to go. The company's vice president for customer service chaired it and started going around the room.
It starts at the nuts and bolts -- the line hardware and transformers that are being gathered from everywhere to complete one of the biggest power restoration projects ever.
It was going to be a tight day for transformers, but more were arriving.
"Manufacturers are keeping up, but it's straining them," said Rufus Smith, director of supply chain management.
"The army hasn't run out of ammunition," said Anthony Topazi, the company's president who sits at the head of the table probing his staff and gathering information.
"We've been close," Smith replied, confident that they had things under control for another couple days.
The scope of this effort boggles the mind. Later, as Topazi closes the meeting, he points out that he's changed the target completion date. The "9-11-05" has a "0" written over the second "1," his handiwork moving the 98 percent goal from Sunday to Saturday.
The meeting started with an announcement that 143,240 customers had gotten power restored, 88 percent of the total, bringing a round of applause.
When all the reports are in, there will probably have been more people left without power after last year's flurry of storms in Florida and Alabama than here. Katrina, however, caused much more damage to the distribution system's backbone.
About 65 percent of transmission and distribution facilities were damaged, and only one Mississippi Power transmission line to the outside grid remained energized after the storm.
And Mississippi Power is just one part of Mississippi's electric network.
Coast Electric serves 58,000 customers in Hancock, Harrison and Pearl River counties. About 21,000 of them had power Friday morning, and 80 percent will have it by the beginning of next week thanks to 2,000 workers.
Entergy still had more than 400,000 customers in Mississippi and Louisiana without power as of Thursday, according to the North American Electric Reliability Council.
Mississippi Power's first meeting has logistics information, manpower updates, transmission status reports, briefs on information technology, finance, safety and generation.
It breaks up, with another higher-level, more forward-looking one, to follow at 8. Moving down the hall is more of a challenge than it was two weeks ago.
Within the bustling and ever-tightening confines of the service center on 28th Street just north of downtown, Mississippi Power provides a microcosm of the Coast's losses and recovery efforts.
It lost about 140,000 square feet of office space, so people are extra-friendly by proximity and there are air mattresses propped in corners everywhere.
The company figures there are 32,000 fewer places they'll have to deliver power to during initial restoration efforts.
Some of those will be its employees. They have 53 members of the "Slab Club," places where that's all that's left.
Another 28 have major damage likely resulting in total loss, and nearly half the 1,250 employees had significant damage to their homes.
They're trying to secure temporary housing for those most afflicted, have already coordinated repair crews from fellow Southern Company entities who have helped with post-Katrina carpentry efforts for those too busy to attend to their own homes.
They're feeding 11,000 people three meals a day, housing them in various camps. At the peak of consumption, 140,000 gallons of fuel a day were used in 5,000 vehicles.
Many of the people at the two high-powered, early morning meetings have cars that were destroyed by flood waters at Plant Jack Watson. A plan to tow the cars out is squashed.
The new location probably won't be as secure, and folks want to retrieve possessions. Kerley wants his Bible.
There is talk of funeral arrangements for family members of two employees, getting the word out about visitations and services.
The company hasn't had any employee shocked during the repairs, although one Alabama Power worker was mentioned who had to leave because of a puncture wound.
Gary Roberson, a Georgia Power security guard, sustained the most serious injuries when the car he was in was T-boned at an intersection. He had a lacerated spleen, broken ribs and a collapsed lung, but was supposed to be out of intensive care Friday.
The company's employee relief fund could generate $3 million. T-shirts and hats commemorating the efforts are being shipped overnight for distribution to the 11,000 workers helping out, and ways to give attaboys and attagirls are high priorities.
Payroll is an issue, and they're trying to get checks delivered to those who need it with the mail down. Cash disbursing is still an option.
"It's a partnership we talk about, rebuilding as a team," says comptroller Moses Feagin. "We want to keep them viable."
One thing creeping back into discussions is the exit strategy. Already, some work crews are being released to either go home or help in other areas. They'll need to reposition for other tropical activity, which remains close to the front of the planners' minds.
At a smaller management council meeting, there's more talk about the future. Plant Watson in Gulfport remains offline.
It'll be six weeks to three months before some electricity is generated there. They're focusing on restoring the two coal-burning units, but there are significant challenges. Three gas-fired units face many more, falling squarely in long-range planning.
The plant took on 20 feet of water that flooded the basement for a week, soaking 100 pieces of equipment -- pumps, switching gear and the like. It's being shipped off for cleaning.
One of the unit's cooling towers is 30 years old, and officials are considering replacement instead of repair.
But progress is being made elsewhere, and power continues to flow. Kim Flowers, the vice president for generation, announced that the transmission network was finally able to receive 1,600 megawatts of power from Plant Daniel, more than double the previous limit because the system had been too unstable.
Massive amounts of manpower and material have made the recovery possible. It has even been helped along by Mother Nature.
After battering the area with Katrina, she's given work crews almost the perfect mix of fair skies and afternoon showers, just enough to cool workers a bit, and more importantly, the fresh water to clean salt-water doused equipment that can spark when re-energized.
"God has really blessed us," Kerley will say later, without a trace of irony less than two weeks after the crippling storm. "This has been about as good as we could have hoped for." |
