Flash is published monthly by Coq)orate Communications for employees and retirees of Omaha Public Power District. The puq)ose of the magazine is to provide industry- and job-related news, as well as feature articles.

The editor appreciates feedback on the contents. To share story ideas, comments or suggestions, call (402) 636-3758 or write to: OPPD, Flash Editor, 3E/EP1, 444 South 16th Street ~lall, Omaha, Nebraska, 68102-2247.

Magazine Production Editor .. ... ....... .... .... . ............ Ten)1 Zank Editorial A

Celebrating a Tremendous Accomplishment

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By Fred Pe/el~~eu

The past several weeks have been filled with a mix of frustration and celebration for the men and women of OPPD; frustration over the longest storm-restoration battle in the histOlY of our utility, and celebration in the perseverance that restored power to more than 130,000 customers under adverse conditions,

There has never been a situation that put us under more public and media scrutiny than the "Storm of '97." [ don 't recall a storm where the recovery effort involved more OPPD personnel from more areas than this one, No previous situation has ever created more widespread and intense pressure on our utili~1 to perforill. And, while ['ve always been a strong supporter of OPPD employees, [ don 't remember ever being more proud of our work force than [ am today, [ hope each of you shares that pride in what our utility accomplished over an II-clay period in late October and early November. This issue of Flasb is dedicated to recognizing those accomplishments,

It 's particularly appropriate to celebrate the spirit and commitment of OPPD employees, not just for what you did following the recent storm, but for what you do every day of evelY year. Utility workers belong in the same category ,L~ police officers, firefighters and others who fulfill their duties conscientiously, whether the day is a Sunday or a Wednesday, a holiday or just a regular workday, It takes a speCial type of person to give so much in the way of service, and I ' Ill grateful to be able to work with so many of you,

The post-storm analysis is under way to idellti~1 areas of good performance and those where improve-ments can be made, But even before it's completed, ['Ill confident that it will show something ['ve always known - there are no better employees than those who work for this utili~I ,

[ hope each of you has a great holiday season and, as you celebrate the holidays, I hope you'll take the time to reflect on and celebrate your outstanding accomplish-ments. You're part of a great group of people, and I'm proud to be associated with you. II

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,-C3~IM{ December 1997 1

I n the W 0 r s t of Times DISTRIBUTION , STREETLIGHT SYSTEMS BEAR BRUNT OF FALLING BRANCHES

This streetlight on the Northwest Radial near 50th Street took some big hits.

The freak storm that dumped up to 13 inches of heavy, wet snow in southeast Nebraska on Oct. 26 left OPPD employees neck-deep in power outages. The sticky snow piled up on leaf-l aden tree limbs, causing countless numbers of branches to break and come crash ing down on

pri mary li nes, secondaries and service drops throughout OPPD's service area - from the Kansas border north into Burt and Washington counties.

fronically, the storm hit on the night that dayli ght-saving time ended - a night when many people look fOlwa rd to

getting an extra hour's sleep. Time and sleep soon became invaluable commodities as employees worked to take outage reports and restore service. Nearly half of OPPD 's customers - an estimated 130,000 - lost power due to the snowstorm.

The damage to OPPD's distribution system was the worst in its 51-year history. At one pOint, more than 70 of the 350 primary circuits in the system were out of service. Many cus-tomers had power restored within a few days, only to have it interrupted again as branches continued to fall. OPPD line crews, contractors, and crews from other utilities completed an estimated 150,000 service restorations in 11 days.

Even after the storm-restoration effort officially ended Nov. 5, a lot of work remained to be done. I3y mid-November, crews had started "reconstituting" the distribution system, which involves making permanent repairs to temporary fixes , and making sure that all the repairs previously made meet electrical codes and OPPD standards for system stability. In addition , OPPD streetlight crews and contractors faced the task of restoring power to several thousand street-lights. The storm took down about a million feet of street-light cable.

Although some cLlstomers became extremely frustrated after being without power for up to 11 days, the majority of notes and letters received have been supportive and apprecia-tive of the effort of OPPD employees. The fact that many customers initially were unable to get through by phone had no impact on the speed of the service-restoration process. The magnitude of the storm - which downed an estimated 20,000 service drops alone - made the process labor-intensive and time-consuming. II

Tbe beautiful snow-covering disguised tbe jitll extent of tbe tree damage.

Todd Bischoff of the .\)racuse Center belps converl an overhead line to undergroulld cable southeast of Louisville.

Storm-Recovery Costs Exceed $12 Million

The cost to repair the damage to OPPD's distribution system is estimated at approximately $12 million. OPPD expects to receive federal funds to help meet these expenses through the Federal Emergency Management Association.

As shown below, the cost of this year's storm basically equals the total combined damages caused by six previous storms, dating back to the 1975 tornado.

Customers Date Cause Affected Cost May 1975 Tornado 35,000 $1 million June 1980 '1wo windstorms 70,000 $3 million Dec. 1982 Ice storm 50,000 $1 million July 1988 Windstorm 75,000 $2 million Oct. 1991 Ice storm 80,000 $3-4 million July 1993 Windstorm 80,000 $2 million

Restoration Process Consumes Record Amounts of Materials The massive service-restoration process consumed record

quantities of materials. During the 11 days after the storm, OPPD used the equivalent of a two-year supply of house service materials, as follows:

• Service wire (which runs from the pole to the building): 290,000 feet of new wire. Normal usage: 12,000 feet per month.

• Grips (which hold the service wire to the pole and build-ing): 20,927. Normal usage: 916 per month.

• Servons (which are used for splices): 59,743. Normal usage: 1,851 per month.

• Meter Sockets (which are issued to contractors for installation): 1,900-plus. Normal issuance: 100 per month.

I n the T r e n ( h e s LINE CREWS GRIND THROUGH RESTORATION

Apprentice Streetlight \Vorker Casey Rakes of the Omaha Center works on a line at 46th and Hamilton streets.

"I t was tough sledding for awhile." That's how Jeny Krause, division manager of Electric

Operations, summed up what employees went through to restore service to nearly half of OPPD's customers after the Oct. 26 snowstorm.

Tree limbs downed by the storm caused outages throughout OPPD's service area, but the majority of damage occurred in the metropolitan Omaha area and to the south toward Syracuse. [n addition to all the outages in the metro, many homes and busi-nesses were without power in towns such as Ashland, Avoca, Cedar Creek, Elmwood, Gretna, Louisville, Manley, Murdock, South Bend, Springfield, Syracuse and Weeping Water. A number of farms in the surrounding areas also lost power.

Line-Damage Deja Vu OPPD line crews, contractors and crews from other utilities per-

formed an estimated 150,000 service restorations in 11 days. Working an average of 16 hours a day, crews restored service to approximately 130,000 customers, some of whom lost power more

4 &'kl6ll December 1997

than once due to recurring problems with falling limbs and wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour the weekend of Nov. I.

"We ought to be celebrating a tremendous effort by our people," Jeny said. "We couldn 't have asked them to do any more than they did."

Dan Jackman, manager of T&D centers, agreed. "Evelyone put forth a superior effort under difficult conditions," Dan said. "The crews worked 16-hour shifts, with eight hours off in between. We restored power as rapidly as possible, without driving our people into the ground with no rest. "

Halloween Marks Halfway Point The service-restoration effort was hindered by ongoing problems

with downed tree branches, which blocked streets and alleys, got tangled up with conductors, and pinned wires and other equipment to the ground. Although temperatures in the 50s and lower 60s had melted most of the trick snow by Halloween, there was no treat in sight for employees. They continued their exhausting storm-recov-elY effort through Nov. 5, when service was restored to all customers

who could receive [lower - excluding those who still needed to have a private electrician repair the equipment on their house.

"From a service-restoration standpoint, from Dan Jackman and Paul Surber to all the line crews, this was as good and well-coordi -nated an effort as we 've ever had," Jeny said. "Steve Anderson's people in Transportation did a great job. Patty Yager did a great job of organizing the phone rooms at the Energy Control Center. The crews from outside of OPPO also served us well - they came in and worked hare!." (See St01:J' below.)

Support Areas Rise to Occasion OPPO personnel from other areas supported the service-restora-

tion effort, including employees from Customer Sales & Service, Engineering, Facilities Management, :Vl,tterial Management, Metering Services, System Protection and Substation.

"We had excellent support from those areas," said Dan Hedrick, manager of the Irvington Center. "We also had 29 people from out-side utilities and 29 contractors working out of our center. A lot of friendships were made with employees from other utilities. Evely-

Other Utilities, Contractors Lend Hand

OPPD personnel started requesting storm-recovety help fr0111 contractors and other utilities on the first day of the snowstorm, Sunday, Oct. 26.

"We brought in about 150 crews - not counting tree-trimming crews - from outside of OPPD," said Dan Jackman, manager of T&D centers. "If you figure close to three men on a crew, that was a substantial work force .

Facilities Management's Todd Chase (far right), an opera-tions and maintenance working crew leader, and Rich Wilson (second/rom rigbt) , an operations and mainte-nance tecbnician, worked witb St. Joseph Light and Power crews toO repair a large circuit in Omaba. Back row: Dennis Dakan and Kevin Akins. Front row: Dean Flesbman, Joe Ingram, Don Nekola and Marvin Brown.

Apprentice Line Technician AI Velasquez (if the Irvington Center works on a repair near 70th and Crown Point.

"The integration of those outside resources, surveying damage in the areas where they were to work, and getting circuit maps to these crews before they started their work was a major effort," Dan said.

People Who Need People Eight outside contractors helped with the restoration effort. In

addition, OPPD has mutual-aid agreement,> with a number of Midwest utilities.

"About 80 percent of the utilities that came in fall under those aid agreements, which baSically state that the host utility will pay workers their standard rate for straight time and overtime, and pay for their lodging and all of their meals," Dan said. "We wanted to make sure they didn 't have to worry about taking time to search for motels or to check in - that was all pre-arranged. Motel rooms were hard to find. Tom Larsen worked very hard at lining up rooms."

Give Us Dirty Laundry "We had a laundry service, where the crews - from other utili-

ties and our own - could throw their extra clothes in bags at the start of the day and they'd come back cleaned yet that night. After these guys had been out there for a few days, working in the mud, we didn 't want them to have to worry about that.

"Our thanks go out to everyone who came in to help us," Dan said.

The utilities that helped included the following Nebraska Rural Electric Associations: Cornhusker, Howard Greeley, Cedar-Knox, Sheridan County, Burt County, Polk County and Cuming County; as well as the Nebraska Public Power District, Western Resources, several South Dakota REAs, st. Joseph Light & Power, Kansas City Power & Light, Missouri Public Service and Fremont Utilities.

,-::ZIaJh December 1997 5

body worked well together." Crews repaired an estimated 20,000 individual service drops. To

complete those repairs, workers used the equivalent of a tvvo-year's supply of house service materials.

"We coordinated our materi al needs with Gary Huliska (material planner in Material Management) ," said Dan Jackman. "Galywas in touch with our vendors, and brought in as much material as possible. Tom Larsen (supervisor of T&D Construction Services) wo rked wi th Gary."

Comparing Apples to Oranges " I talked with a number of the contractors who worked this

storm, and who had worked the Kansas Ci ty storm a year ago ," Dan Jackman said. "They said th at ours was worse because we had so many more lines destroyed by tree limbs. When they put circuits back on in Kansas City, they picked up a lot of their load right off the bat. We had a Jot more total destruction of taps and service drops. We had about a million feet of secondary that was either downed or replaced, along with hundreds of wood poles and much of our streetlight system. "

Center Managers Say, 'Thanks' In appreciation for their hard work during the storm-

recovery eff011, Electric Operations employees were treated to either a catered breakfast or luncheon in November. The meals were served in conjunction with the employees' month-ly safety meetings.

Here are some comments of appreciation from the service center managers to their employees: "Thank you for the outstanding effort. We did everything we could to get the customers' Hghts on. 1 don't know how we could've done any better."

- Mark Naslund, Papillion Center "You all worked weU, worked safely, and went about it in a professional manner. Thanks for doing such a great job."

- AI Spangler, Syracuse Center "We did it. We survived the big one - the mother of all storms! Thanks to all the dedicated Irvington and Blair per-sonnel, and to the employees from Substation, Customer Sales & Service, Engineering, Metering Services, Trans-portation and Operations. You can aU be proud of your accompHshments during this restoration."

- Dan Hedrick, Irvington Center "I can't say enough about the response we had from our people. They all went the extra mile. Thanks to everyone who helped with the effolt."

- Steve Meisinger, Elkhorn Center "This was a tremendous job - well done. It was an outstand-ing effort by a great group of craftsmen and support person-nel. To the Omaha Center employees and to all of the other department personnel who assisted us, a sincere thanks for your part in this great team effort."

- Tom Bruner, Omaha Center

Line Technician Brend.an Linse oj the :,)'racuse Center repairs a service drop in Springfield.

Although the offici al storm-restoration effort ended Nov. 5, much work remains to be done.

"We have 15 I:\vo-man contractor crews being coordinated through the Omaha Center to help rebuild our streetli ght system in the metro area," Dan Jackman said. "We anticipate getting that done in the next four to si x weeks."

OPPD crews also will be making streetli ght repairs, both in the Omaha area and in smaller towns in the utili ty 'S south subdivision.

"We also will have 15 three-man crews that will reconstitute our distribution system so that it 's up to the necessary standards ," Dan said. "That will be about a six-week effort, too"

Recalling Retirees To help gather information for that reconstitution effort, OPPD

has rehired nine Electric Operations retirees. 'Jack Finney, a former Papillion Center manager, is helping to

coordinate the work of the other eight retirees ," Dan continued. "They are walking through about 140 of our metro circui ts to determine where there are broken poles, low sags, conditions that don 't meet code, or condi tions that are electrically or mechanically unstable. "

The contribution of those retirees shows how OPPO tapped into every possible resource for the storm-recovery process.

"This has been a major coordinated effort ," said Dan Hedrick. "I think utilities across the country will be looking at what we did and the magnitude of it. They may even come to us for advice on how to handle a situation like this." II

I n the Hot Sea t SPOKESPEOPLE FACE BARRAGE OF MEDIA INQUIRIES

OPPD Chairman of the Board johll Green, President Fred Petersen and Electric Operations Division Manager Jeri:)! Krause face the cameras and answer questions at an Oct. 30 news conference at Energy Plaza.

W hile other employees worked to repair downed lines, answer phones, etc., OPPD's corporate communica-tors faced a barrage of media inquiries. The media interest was directly proportional to the size of the storm, according to Delores "DJ" Jacobberger, supelvisor of Media Relations and Advertising.

"The number of media inquiries we received during this outage far exceeded that of any previous storm-related outage," said Dj. "At the peak of the outage, we were getting 60 calls per day from the media. Inquiries came from virtually evelY local newspaper, TV station and radio station. In addition, we received calls from national news groups such as the Associated Press, ABC, CBS, CNN and others.

"When the outage first began, the questions were pretty much the standard sort of inquiries," she said. "Reporters wanted to know how many customers were without power, when the power was going to be restored, and so on. But as the outage continued, the media demanded more detailed information about our distribution system - and they demanded to know why Ollr telephone system was not ahle to answer all the customer calls."

The onslaught of media inquiries began on the night of the snow-storm, Oct. 26, and continued throughout all hours of the day and night until the outage ended, OJ said. A decision was made early on that President Fred Petersen would be accessible to the media.

"Fred selved as the primary spokesman, which is customary in a time of crisis," DJ said.

Jim Leuschen, division manager of Corporate Communications, Gary Williams, manager of Media Relations and Publications, and DJ helped Fred respond to media inquiries during the weeks following the snowstorm. GalY and DJ began each day during the outage by calling area radio and TV stations early in the morning with service-restoration updates. Fred went on the air at KFAB at 7:40 a.m. and 4:40 p.m. to discuss OPPD's progress in restoring power.

"At one point, Fred joked that he should be on KFAB 's payroll," DJ said.

Fred and Chairman of the Board John Green also made several appearances on morning and evening radio and TV news shows, and answered questions from newspaper reporters. The cOIlJorate communicators provided interviews to reporters, accompanied members of the media on visits to the Energy Control Center, and did everything possible to keep the media and the public informed about the situation.

"We all relied on a large cast of OPPD employees to provide information to us and, in many cases, directly to the media," DJ said.

Some of the key contact) were Jerry Krause, Paul Surber, Bill Derrnyer, Dan Jackman and a host of other employees frolll Electric Operations, Engineering and other divisions.

"All of them did a great job," DJ said. "I can't say enough good things about the way employees pulled together to get the power back on and help us keep the public informed. "iii

alr,ok December 1997 7

I n the Centers ECC , SERVICE CENTERS KEEP THINGS MOVING

Howard Koziol, a r&D S:),slem OperatOJ; was on duty in the EI/ergy Control Center eal'~Y Sund(() ' morning, Ocl. 26, whell Ihe snoUJstorln slarted causing trouble.

The Energy Control Center and the service centers were filled with a flurry of activity after the Oct. 26 snowstorm.

"We declared a level 2 emergency at 1:30 in the morning because a number of circuits had tripped out, and we were starting to get a lot of trouble calls," said Paul Surber, section manager of technical selvices in Electric Operations.

"We started calling out our own people as quickly as we could, and we got an out'ltanding response," Paul said. "We had 50-some crews in the field by 9 a.m. , which is good for a Sunday morning, especially considering the road conditions. Before 10 a.m., we determined that we were going to need

oul'iide help, so we declared a level 3 emergency and started calling in contractors and crews from other utilities. "

Damage Done in all Directions The service-restoration effort was made difficult by the sheer

magnitude of the storm damage, including a record number of damaged taps and selvice drops.

"This was a lot different than past storms," said Bob O'Neill , manager of T&D Operations. "Early on, we knew we had about 70 circuits locked out, with about 1,200 customers on each circuit. When the crews started repairing those cir-cuits and we reenergized them, we'd pick up less than 30 per-

cent of the load. Normally, we'd pick up 90 percent of the load because there would only be one tap fuse blown. This time, there would only be one fuse that wa..;; still working."

Paul agreed. "When the crews would get a circuit back on, we'd find that most all of the fuses on that cir-cuit were blown, and nearly all of the individual house services were down," he said. "We've never had a storm like that before."

Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

"We had about 98 different circuits lock out during the storm - 38 of those were out more than once, and some of them four times," Bob said. "When I went home one night, only two circuits were out. When I came back in the morning, about four

Mike C;ibsOl1, a T&D ,~)!stem OPeratOl; uses an overbead-Iine atlas to belp identijjl olltage areas.

hours later, we still had two circuits out - two new ones. It was difficult, with the branches continuing to fall."

Because of the number of circuits that were locked out, ser-vice centers were given the task of repairing entire circuits, with the center dispatchers coordinating that work.

"The circuits that were aSSigned to a center became that center's total responsibility, " said Dan Jackman, manager of

T&D centers. "We've done that before, but we did a lot more of it this time. By assigning out entire circuits, the center's crews had direct contact with the dispatcher at that center, so that nobody else would be working on that circuit. From a safety standpoint, it wa..;; critical that we and the dispatchers knew which crews were on a given circuit.

Service Centers are Hub of Restoration Wheel

"Because of where the bulk of the damage ..... was located, as soon as we could, we started to

move Elkhorn and Syracuse Center crews into the territories of the Papillion, Irvington and Omaha centers," Dan said. "We also opened up a 'center' at 43rd and Leavenworth. Tom Buelt, Bob Jansen and a few other employees staffed that center, coordinating the work of about a dozen crews from other utilities. We ran many of the outside crews through the Elkhorn Center because the Papillion, Omaha and Irvington centers were so crowded you could hardly walk down the halls.

Omaha Center Manager Tom Brunei; standing, and Electric OPerations Division Managerje1'J:F Krause study a circuit map midwc~)' through the outage.

"I congratulate the center managers - Tom Bruner, Dan Hedrick, Mark Naslund, Steve Meisinger and AI Spangler - as well as every person on every crew, and Tom Larsen for a superior effort," Dan said. "Everyone worked extremely hard." 61

I n the Lin e of Fire EMPLOYEES ANSWER THE CALL

Bev Adams and Candy Clark of the RAMS Project, and Charlotte Owens of Customer Information and Accounting answer outage calls in the temporary phone room at Energy Plaza.

Late Saturday night on Oct. 25, snow quietly began to fall in southeastern Nebraska. While most area residents were still sleeping, a few were being awakened by the sound of falling tree limbs. At 12:23 a.m., Sunday, Oct. 26, the first storm-related outage was r€ported to the Energy Control Center (ECC). It would be the first of more than 150,000 outages caused by the storm -the most ever in OPPD's 51-year history.

ECC personnel, who had been tracking the stonn, began responding immediately. By 2:45 a.m., the ECC's 24-hour, 20-line phone room was fully staffed to receive outage calls.

"We declared a level 2 stonn situation at about 1:30 in the morning," said Bob O'Neill, manager of T&D Operations in Electric Operations. "In most storms, roughly 5,000 customers will be affected, and it will take about 10 people to handle those

10 ,-::r/",;;! December 1997

calls. Three days after this one started, we were up to 130,000 out-ages that needed to be handled."

Blind-Sided by a Blizzard No one had predicted the severity of the "stonn of 97," as it has

been dubbed, nor the magnitude of the damage, In the next II days, employees answered more than 120,000 phone calls, and entered 83,743 outages into the automated-trouble-call system. The stOlID knocked out power initially to 130,000 homes and businesses. Many of these customers had power restored early on, only to have it interrupted again as branches continued to fall. As a result, over 150,000 service restorations were completed in an II-day period.

The rally of employees pitching in to help began almost

immediately. At the height of the outage, 145 people answered phones, while another 200 support person-nel helped with tasks such as data ently. Those who helped ECC personnel staff phone lines to take outage reports included employees from Accounting, Communications, Engin-eering, Meter Reading, Production Operations, Customer Care Services and Corporate Communications.

Before power was finally restored to most customers, OPPD employees who answered phones tallied thousands of hours of over-time. Many worked up to 16 hours a day, and some put in more than a 96-hour work-week. Most skipped lunch and coffee breaks, eating at their desks, in order not to miss customer calls. Bob Baye of Customer Care Services enters outage iI?!ormatioll.

Employees Rally to the Call "The employees' response to the crisis was overwhelming," said

Larry Ciecior, division manager of Customer [nformation Services. "Early Sunday morning, we began assembling personnel in Customer Care Services to help take outage calls. By Monday morning, we had employees from numerous divisions.

"Evelyone was asking if there was anything they could do. This continued the whole week. The number of houl'S the employees put in was staggering. Even after 14- to IS-hour davs thev were sti ll as pleasant as when they came in that morning. :rhei'r profes-sionalism was outstanding."

Working Shoulder-to-Shoulder Vice presidents and division managers worked shoulder-to-

shoulder with staff pel'Sonnel to accomplish an ovelwheJming task. "[t was really inspiring to see people like Lany Ciecior and Tim Bu rke (vice president of Energy Services) working in the beat of things along with the other employees," said Jeri Shelor, perfor-mance measures and process analyst in Call Center Process Improvement. Jeri herself worked 96 hOlil'S before the fil'St week was through.

On Monday morning, it became clear that more phone li nes were needed to inCl'ease the customel'S' access. The voice response unit (VRU) at Energy Plaza was switched off so that outage calls coming in on the 536-4131 and 696-2600 numbel'S wou ld be routed to a Customer Care Services representative, rather than

Employees' Additional Phone Help Appreciated

Thanks to the many employees who belped answer phones during the outage. These are the areas that participated:

• Accounting • Communications • Corporate Communications • Customer Information Services • Customer Sales & Service • Electric Operations • Engineering • Environmental & Governmental Affairs • Executive • Facilities Management • Finance • Financial Auditing • Human Resources • Information Technology • Market Services • Material Management • Production Operations • RAMS Project • System Planning

'-'Z/(fj, December 1997 11

being transferred to the ECC phone room. "By deactivating that VRU, and letting the outage calls go to the

customer service offices, OPPD had all additional 35 lines," Lany explained.

Maxing Out with Messages Customers, however, already were calling other OPPD numbers

listed in the phone book. When Jackie Quigley, cOlllmunications assistant in Consumer Relations, arrived at work on Monday morning, she learned her voice-mail was full. One hundred and seventy-six messages were recorded. From that time untU 4 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 30, Consumer Relations and Marketing Selvices personnel pitched in to answer calls from 12 to 13 hours a day. They often were joined by personnel from other areas, including Marc Nichols, division manager of Facilities Management, and Tom Richards, manager of government and community affairs in Environmental & Governmental Affairs.

On Wednesday, Diane Cain , manager of Communications in EO, requested 10 additional phone trunk) from U.S. West. These were installed at the ECC on Thursday, increasing its lines to .30.

Opening More Phone Lines Also on Wednesday, ECC personnel had a handle on the scope of

the selvice-restoration work, and wanted to take steps to ensure that all outages had been reported and entered into the computer system. President Fred Petersen announced at a press conference on Thursday that beginning at 4 p.m., customers should call any OPPD business number in the phone book to report outages.

Chuck Deane alldJan Bednarz oJCustomer Care Services discuss Cln outage en!l]'.

12 L7i

Running Out of Romance Jackie Peny, supervisor in Customer Care Services, recalls one

employee who received a call from an elderly gentleman who said he was in his late 70s. "He told the employee that he had been in a motel with his wife for five days. He said the two of them ran out of romance three days ago, and he 'd like to get his power restored as soon as possible," Jackie laughed.

"Another customer called and wanted to know when her power wou ld be restored," she said. "The woman said she was getting tired of taking her two three-foot lizards to bed with her to keep them warm. Usually, they slept under electric heat lamps."

Receiving Votes of Thanks The storm of '97 won't soon be forgotten by OPPD or its cus-

tomers. ~1any people called and wrote in their votes of thanks for a job well done - some even going beyond the call of duty them-selves. On Tuesday, Oct. 29, Channel 7 news displayed and announced an incorrect number for customers to call- a num-ber belonging to Mrs. Robelt E. Moss. When contacted by an OPPD employee, Mrs. Moss said she had been answering OPPD's calls all week and referring the callers to the correct number.

"[ feel like an OPPD employee, except ['m not on the payroll," she laughingly remarked. "My husband works for the phone com-pany, and [ understand what your crews are up against."

Both Joe and Lany agreed that one of the things OPPD learned from the storm crisis was that the utility has a staff of many dedi-cated employees that can be trained and drawn upon to assist in any emergency, quickly and efficiently.

Citing an example of that dedication , Delores Jacobberger, supervisor of media relations and advertising in Corporate Communications, said that the Energizers were in Kansas on Oct. 26, having attended tbe Nebraska-Kansas football game. DJ said, "Even though the interstate in Nebraska was not yet navi-gable, people were knocking on my hotel door at 9 a.m. on Sunday, saying, 'We've got to get home, the people in Omaha are without power. ' " II

Barb Williams of Customer Care Services takes a call in the ECC phone room.

OPPD Maximizes Phone System During Outage

In November 1995, OPPD upgraded its phone system, going to a more sophisticated exchange with expanded automatic-call-distribution capabilities, said Diane Cain, manager of Communications in Electric Operations.

"During the outage, this allowed us to better utilize the help of the Customer Care Services people, along with storm-room personnel," Diane explained. "Prior to the upgrade, customer service people were on one phone exchange, and the storm-room group on another, so you couldn't put the two together to handle overflow calls. The new system, along with two voice-response units (VIWs), enabled employees to handle the calls better than before,"

Even with the new system, the phone lines were overtaxed, with 130,000 customers attempting to report outages in the first few days after the Oct. 26 storm. On Monday of that week, the VRUs at Energy Plaza and the Energy Control Center were switched off so that incoming outage calls would go to Energy Plaza employees. That opened up 35 additional lines for outage calls at that location . On Thursday, 10 more phone trunks were installed at the Energy Control Center, bringing the total in that building to 30 lines.

But the real challenge came when customers were asked to call OPPD and verify their outages, starting at 4 p.m. that day.

"We did something that I had never seen us do before," Diane explained. "We allowed people to call any OPPD number listed in the phone book. We put a coverage path on each line so that if it was busy, the call would roll over to additional telephones to be answered. For example, employ-ees normally have one extension to answer. Though a comput-er in the telephone switch, we added two more extenSions, allowing three people to answer multiple calls coming in on one listed number."

Communications employees also installed a telephone-answering system in three conference rooms on the atrium level of Energy Plaza. "Calls were transferred to the confer-ence rooms, where we had set up a bank of 42 additional phone lines," Diane said.

In a 24-hour period, OPPD employees answered more than 20,000 phone calls, with few customers getting busy signals.

In addition to the phone system, Communications also was responsible for the radio system that enabled crews to communicate with each other and with the service centers.

"This is a big responsibility in a storm, especially when many additional crews are being brought in ," Diane explained. "We use an 800-megahertz, two-way radio system. To accol11illodate the larger number of crews in the field, we borrowed an additional 38 portable units from Fort Calhoun Station and programmed them so the crews could communi-cate. Also, Aliant Communications loaned us 20 cellular phones for immediate use.

"I think we learned a lot from dealing with this storm, and we'll be better prepared to cope if another one tomes up," Diane said.

I n the Dark CUSTOMER RESPONSE VARIES WIDELY

The Burns Jamily oj Omaha showed their appreciation in a unique way. From the le)i are Kristie, Russell, Dave and Wenc/i.

Many customers were frustrated and angly, and there were isolated instances of threats against line crews, but most people understood the situation. OPPD employees were doing the best they could to help 130,000 customers who were left without electricity after the Oct. 26 snowstorm.

Among those who appreciated OPPD's efforts were Patricia c., who lives near 18th and Laird streets in north Omaha. Ms. C. brought out doughnuts and a big kettle of coffee for an Omaha line crew after they restored her power, then insisted that they par-take. The crew members were Working Line Crew Leader Larry Strode, Line Technician Bob "Ziggy" Zbylut, Laborer Ed Bagley,

Utility Worker Randy Gearhart and Troubleshooter Tim Zeleny. "They helped me out greatly," Ms. C. said. "Larry said yesterday

that they would be back today, and they were here early this morn-ing. The OPPD crews did the best they could, and I just praise them, because they really did a wonderful job. We just need to learn how to have more patience in life. "

Some customers got creative in showing their appreciation. Here 's an excelvt from a poem, written by Gayle Roberts of Omaha:

"One cold wintery ni ght in the middle of fall , There came a great snow, winter paid us a call. .

of a 144-pound pumpkin that he turned into a unique jack-o' -lantern. Dave's father, Maurice "Duke" Burns, worked at Fort Calhoun Station, retiring in 1993.

"We were one of the lucky ones," Dave said. "We didn 't lose the service from the pole to the house, thank God." Com-menting on the work of OPPD crews, he added, "I drove a truck over the road for quite a few years, and 1 know what it's like to work straight through for days on end, and not be around your family. "

Ed fjagle)' and Z(~[{Y Z~ylut of the Omaha Center enjoy the c({ffee find doughnuts supplied ~)! Patricia C.

A number of customers treated OPPD crews to cookies and other refresh-

ments. A deejay from The Point radio station (93.3 FM) brought several dozen muffins to the Customer Care Services employees at Energy Plaza.

of Omaha

Our yard was soon filling with limbs all about, And everything seemed Illuch worse when the power went out.

But out in the streets were those of great skill. Working hour upon hour, fighting off a great chilli ...

People got grumpy, complained to the hi It, Some forgot the storm's power, they wanted to lay guilt.

But there are those who appreciate the job that was done, Appreciate the crews, their job was not fun l ."

Theresa Brennan 's third-grade class from Sts. Peter and Paul School in Omaha sent hand-colored thank-you notes to Energy Plaza. Here are some highlights

"Thank you for getting the power back on' I had to stay with Illy grandma, and it was not fun, but the fun part W(L~, I got to play pool with my dad."

"'I'hank you for all your work. ,\,ly entire family had power the whole time. l'vly poor, poor teacher didn'l have power. She got il back yesterday We are praying for you guys."

"Thank you for giving back power to LIS. Some people are mad, but we are not. You are good workers, 1 think. Keep up the good work'"

Dave and Kristie Burns, of 7706 N. 34th Street in Omaha, had their power restored on Tuesday evening, Oct. 28. Dave L1sed a brand-new jigsaw to carve the words, "Thanks, OPPD" in the side

KFAB (lItO AM) declared the week of Nov 9 a salute to OPPD. Imperial Outdoor Advertising displayed billboards in Omaha that read, "Thank you, OPPD."

Perhaps the most generous show of appreciation came from First Westroads Bank of Omaha, which presented OPPD with 400 tickets to University of Nebraska-Omaha hockey games, played Nov. 15 and 16. Human Resources distributed the tickets in pairs to employees in Electric Operations, Customer Sales & Service, Customer Information Services, Facilities Management and Engineering. The tickets were distributed based on the amount of overtime worked during the storm-restoration. II

Chris Mutphy, the president of First Westroads Bank, presents President Fred Petersen with UNO hockey ticketsfor OPPD employees.

'-..7/,,';/, December 1997 15

I n the Wa k e oft h e S tor m BROKEN BRANCHES

BREAK HOMEOWNERS ' HEARTS

This extreme example of tree damage occurred on Happy Hollow Boulevard north of Dodge Street. "T he October 26 snowstorm was by far the worst storm, in

terms of tree damage, that I've ever seen," said Jerry Hakenholz, supervisor of forestry and cable location.

Many of the trees and limbs that were damaged in the storm brought down conductors, poles and other equipment, and blocked roads and alleys, which hampered OPPD's service-restoration effort.

The storm, which caused damage to an estimated nine out of 10 trees in Omaha, left many residents brokenhearted and wondering whether their trees are beyond repair.

"The standard rule of thumb is that if you lose 50 percent or more of the limbs, you need to replace the tree," said Jerry. "However, if the trunk or a strong main leader branch is broken, the tree probably will not recover. Most of the damaged trees I have

seen throughout the city could probably survive with some prun-ing. But it will take several years to reestablish their appearance."

Jerry offered some tips for correct trimming. He said the key is to avoid cutting too close to the parent branch or leaving a stub or too much of the limb intact.

"You have to be careful not to leave a stub," said jeny. "A stub will not callous over. It is important that callous tissue form around the exposed area to protect from decay. But you also do not want to cut extremely close to the parent limb. You want to leave the slight swelling, called the branch collar, at the base of the branch.

"One reason that there was so much damage was because many of the trees still had their leaves," said Jerry. "Leaves increase the surface area for the snow to collect on, which, in this case, was

Call tact a local n1lrse'y.!i)/' more de/ai/so Source: National Arbor D(~J' Foundation. Graphic cOll/'te!>y a/Darrell Forbes, Omaha World-Herald.

vely heavy and wet. If the leaves had been off most trees, we prob-ably would have gotten through the storm with minimal damage. Also, some of the deciduous trees had trouble supporting the ex tra weight that the early snow brought, while the limbs of the conifers, sLlch as pines and spruces, were more accustomed to being covered with snow. That's why you didn't see as many of them damaged. "

"J hope people reali ze that this could have been a lot worse," Forester Luanne Coziahr added. "Our department works through-out the year to remove tree limbs that could cause damage to our primary power lines. Nobody li kes the way trees look after we've trimmed them, but our work saves a lot of lines. "

I n addition to their everyday work, Forestry personnel act as a support system for line crews during outages. When the snowstorm

Downed limbs partial(y 01' complete()! blocked roads tbroughout tbe Omaha metropolitan area.

hit, Forestry employees set up a storm desk which each service center could call to report areas where limbs were hampering restoration efforts. Forestry also was responsible for bringing in the many add itional contract tree-trimming crews that were needed after the storm.

"I knew the morning of the storm that it was going to be big," said Luanne. "When it hit, Mike Norris was the forester on call. He started lining things up and began the preparation. By 4 or 5 in the afternoon, Jeny bad called evelyone and implemented the forestry service-restoration plan. He coordinated things ve lY well. "

After 11 days of working to clear limbs, fati gue set in. "It was velY tiring" said Luanne. "There was a lot of frustration .

Forestry was coordinating activities from its office at 43rd There would be no phone calls for awhile. then all of a sudden, a dozen would come in. Our crews worked velY hard." 61

Workers Go Above and Beyond the Call

Although tbe snowstorm caused many problems, it also brought people together. One instance came when a woman fell on the snow and began sliding down a slippety incline. Out of control and unable to stop herself, the woman could see cars passing at the bottom of the hill , and was sure they did not see her coming. Suddenly, a man grabbed her from behind and stopped her slide. The man was James Richarl~ , a foreman with Asplundh - OPPD 's tree-trimming contractor - who had been working nearby. Luckily, he was wearing climbing boots and was able to dash down the hill and save the woman's life.

Another instance came when a tree limb fell onto the side-walk outside an elderly woman 's home, blocking her passage. The woman was afraid she might lose her balance if she tried to remove the limb herself. OPPD Working Line Crew Leader Denny Arbaugh, who saw the woman outside looking at the limb, stopped his work and moved the limb.

"He could have just passed right by me," said the woman. "But he went right down through all the mud and removed the limb. What a peach he was. I hope OPPD knows how lucky they are to have him."

"Branching Out" Program Offers Help

The Omaha World-Herald's "Brancbing Out" program was created to make available technical information about tree-trimming and to belp people evaluate tree damage, according to Jeny Hakenbolz, committee member for the program. The World-Herald also has designated $1 million for a tree-planting effort that will make trees available to bome-owners and others.

To learn more about tbe program, or for information about tree-trimming, call the World-Herald "Branching Out" hotline at (800) 769-TREE.

,-CZ/,,;/ December 1997 17