By John McCallum
Editor 

Lessons learned from last year's windstorm

Nov. 17 marks anniversary of storm that downed trees and fences, blew off roofs and knocked out power to tens of thousands in region

 

Last updated 11/17/2016 at 8:40am

Cheney residents examine damage along Erie Street as winds continue to howl mid-afternoon Nov. 17, 2015.

Eastern Washington residents can be forgiven if they get nervous when the winds begin to blow - especially this time of year.

Thursday, Nov. 17, marks the one-year anniversary of the historic "big blow," for lack of a better phrase. On that date in 2015, the morning winds began to live up to what the National Weather Service had predicted in a Nov. 14 significant weather briefing.

"The wind event was expected to be historic for the region," Avista Utilities writes in its booklet "Wind Storm 2015: Overcoming the Greatest Natural Disaster in Our History."

As winds climbed, local power companies and municipalities began to huddle up to address what was coming. Eventually winds that gusted to over 60 mph - the highest being 71 mph at Spokane International Airport - uprooted trees and knocked down power lines denying power to tens of thousands of customers region-wide.

It took Avista until Nov. 27 to restore power to its 180,000 affected customers, including in Medical Lake. City Administrator Doug Ross said most of the city was back up within four days, with the exception of some residents in South Lake Terrace who were without power for a week.

In Cheney, things went quicker. Light Department Director Steve Boorman said most of the city's outage was transmission-line related. Power was back on to most of the city by Wednesday morning after Bonneville Power Administration and Avista crews got power back to Cheney's substations on Jensen and Cheney-Plaza roads.

There was still quite a bit of damage to fix, Boorman added, and it wasn't until Friday evening, Nov. 20, that the final customers were back online.

So what lessons did some local officials learn from last year's windstorm? For Heather Rosentrater, Avista's vice president of energy delivery, that question had a ready answer.

"You can never have too much communication," she said.

Rosentrater said the utility upgraded the outage management of its website prior to the storm, and spent time identifying command structures and roles so they would function more like other emergency agencies, such as fire departments. This helped with logistics, not only after the storm but during it as well.

"We normally send crews out during storms," Rosentrater said. " We recognized early on things were falling down all around, and we were not being effective. We thought that maybe holding the crews in until after things calmed down might be better."

Rosentrater said they also made sure to stock plenty of items necessary to restoring power, and that despite the rumors, the utility didn't run out of supplies. Finally, since the storm, Avista has taken advantage of opportunities to bury its power cables, especially in new subdivisions.

"But that doesn't eliminate the problem," Rosentrater said. "It takes longer to fix (cables) when they're underground."

In the case of Medical Lake, the lesson learned was being prepared.

"The biggest thing for us was we heeded the warnings the NWS had issued ahead of the storm," Fire Chief Jason Mayfield said in an email. "Our station is all volunteer, but we made sure we had folks on duty at the station and we put extra supplies and fuel on the trucks ahead of time."

Ross said the city relies on emergency services from the Spokane County of Emergency Management and the Red Cross to provide shelters and other assistance. Normally that is sufficient, but last November, with power out for extended periods and cold temperatures, Medical Lake opened its city hall to residents as shelter.

"Sometimes, you have to take it on yourself," Ross said.

Preparedness was also a lesson Cheney officials cited as paying off, along with documentation. Especially when it came to filing for financial relief from the Federal Emergency Management Administration, FEMA.

Cheney received $104,943 in FEMA relief, money that went to reimbursing departments such as Light and Parks for repair efforts. It was a tedious process, City Administrator Mark Schuller said, but it was worth it.

"Those departments needed that money," Finance Director Cindy Niemeier added.

Both Schuller and Light Department Director Boorman pointed to the city's annual tree-trimming work as another example of being prepared. Boorman said it's not cheap, about $45,000 annually, but the practice kept down instances of branches impacting power lines.

One of Boorman's final takeaways from the storm was that consumer-owned utilities have a bit more goodwill than privately owned ones.

"I think Avista got a little beat up," he said. "Here, if you don't like something you can come to a City Council meeting and talk to the utility's board of directors."

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.

Author Bio

John McCallum, Retired editor

John McCallum is an award-winning journalist who retired from Cheney Free Press after more than 20 years. He received 10 Washington Newspaper Publisher Association awards for journalism and photography, including first place awards for Best Investigative, Best News and back-to-back awards in Best Breaking News categories.

 

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