Last Meeting- Oct. 2nd
Last week’s program was provided by Rotarian Steve Wyman.
Steve’s guest speaker was Doug Driggers, Regional Manager
for Community and Government Relations. Doug spoke to us
about the recent hurricane and TECO’s efforts before and after
the storm. In preparation for hurricane Irma, Teco employees
had “storm assignments” that were much different than their
regular duties. Accounting and Finance people were now cooking
and washing clothes, executives and managers were making beds
and carrying water. Everyone at Teco pitched in to help make
this natural disaster recovery as painless as possible. Prior to
the storm Teco was anticipating 300,000 – 400,000 people affected
base on forecasts and had planned to shut down sub stations and
power plants if they had storm surge or flooding. By shutting
them down they could bring them back up faster after the storm.
They had requested 6,000 lineman and tree trimmers from outside
the state to help with restoration. Shortly before the storm hit they
had 1,500 lineman from the Midwest staged in Georgia waiting for
the Irma to pass. When the storm passed there were 427,000 (60%)
of the 700,000 customers without power. Lineman from the
Midwest, Oklahoma, Maine, Nova Scotia were some of the 4,000
out of state workers who came here to help by working 16 hour
shifts and completing 280,000 work hours to restore power.
It took 7.25 days to restore power to 425,000 people which is
amazing since it took 14 days to restore power to 285,000 after
hurricane Jean. There were many challenges with assisted
living/nursing homes that hadn’t registered that they were facilities.
The total cost of the restoration is estimated to be around $70
million. The challenge in reporting areas that had been restored
was not accurate as many of the “out of state” workers didn’t have
the same reporting systems. The work of the Teco “family” was
incredible. Everyone pitched in, often to the detriment of their own
families and properties, to ensure the people of the Tampa area had
power as soon as possible. Thank you Doug and the people at Teco
for “keeping the lights on” and “getting them back on”!!
-submitted by Mike Arndt
