HomeMy WebLinkAbout15 Storm Event Operationsenda Item #
To: Board of Directors
From: Stephen Hollabaugh
Date: March 01, 2017
Subject: Discussion Regarding Continuing Storm Event Operations
1. WHY THIS MATTER IS BEFORE THE BOARD
This is an informational item regarding the current storm events and outages.
2. HISTORY
15
The greater Truckee community has had large storm events throughout history.
These storm events put stress on roadways, snow removal operations, and utility
operations amongst other areas of concern. At the January 19, 2017 Board meeting, a
workshop item covering January 4th through January 18th storm events were
reviewed. The workshop included:
• Part 1: The Atmospheric River! (Wednesday, January 4th to January
9th) - Started with significant snowfall and then two days of rain.
• Part 2: The Blizzard! (Tuesday, January 10 to January 13th) - Large
amount of snow in a short period, Heavy wet snow that caused extensive
damage.NV Energy transmission line hit by tree causing entire District to lose
power for just over 12 hours.
• Part 3: Mutual Aid! (Wednesday to Saturday, January 11th to January
13th) - Received Mutual Aid from City of Roseville and Plumas Sierra Rural
Electric.
• Part 4: The Aftermath! (January 13 to January 18th) - Primary electric
lines all repaired by Saturday January 17th. Crews continued to repair downed
secondary and services and more to customers homes.
The Storms Keep Coming: At the Feb 1, 2017 Board meeting , a workshop item
covering January 19th through February 1st storm events were reviewed. The
workshop included:
The greater Truckee community continued to respond to a series of severe winter
storms and blizzards that have caused power outages, traffic delays, school closures,
falling trees and flooding. This latest series of storms started on January 19th and
went through January 25th. The blizzard that peaked on Sunday through Sunday
night dumping several feet of snow in the Truckee area. Sunday and Monday was
particularly challenging as a large number of trees fell again, roads became
impassible, and access to our equipment was not possible or requirement significant
effort.
Over the 7 plus day time -period to today (January 19 to January 25th), the District has
experienced 14,115 customer interruptions. The most severe days was January 241h
where 10,780 customers were affected when NV Energy's transmission service went
down from around 3:18 PM and went on and off line through 10:30 that night. In total,
the District responded to 2,651 outage calls from customers during that period.
The District's electric crews have been working day and night to remove trees and
repair damage to our distribution sy
protection and safety equipment pe
staff, along with support from all Di
3. NEW INFORMATION
tri
help coordinate the efforts of the crews.
The beginning of February (1-4) started with normal conditions and just a few outages,
more of business as usual. Then on February 5th a large weather related outage
caused Tahoe Donner 2 to trip off line as crews responded. This outage lasted
approximately 6 hours. February 6th through 9th were quiet as far as outages go.
On February 10th, an outage at Truckee Substation caused by lines unloading snow
lasted approximately 20 minutes and an outage of Martis Valley 1 - outage lasted
approximately 30 minutes cauxed by the same snow related line loading and
unloading.
February 12th through 19th were more business as usual with calls from individual
customers and little damage to the electrical system.
Newest Storms:
The end of Presidents' weekend into the next week (Feb 20th through Feb
brought more wintry conditions and new weather caused outages to our electric
system. On Monday February 20th the crews worked most of the day chasing down
small outages throughout the system. On Monday night, the storm worsened and the
District saw numerous outages mostly in the Tahoe Donner Area. Most of the District
crews worked through the night on storm damage. By Tuesday morning just a few
outages remained in the Donner Lake and Prosser areas. Tuesday brought scattered
outages throughout the day but at 6:05 PM a large transmission outage took most of
the system out of power. Luckily NV Energy was able to bring the system back into
power at 6:40 PM. Wednesday February 22 brought lost more snow. Glenshire area
was out of power at 1:00 am due to a transmission outage. NV energy and Liberty
Utility were able to get power back on in Glenshire around 3:00 pm. Truckee
Substation tripped off-line around 2:00 pm Wednesday. Inspection led District staff to
believe that one of the main transformers may have had an internal fault. Staff
bussed in the spare substation transformer and had all Truckee customers back in
service around 7:00 pm. Staff has been working very hard to restore power to our
customers and work safely in these extreme weather conditions.
Through the winter of 2017, our crews have responded to over 1000 incidents.
4. FISCAL IMPACT
The fiscal impact of these particular series of storms has yet to be determined.
5. RECOMMENDATION
Receive this report and provide input to staff.
Stephen Hollabaugh
Assistant General Manager
Michael D. Holley
General Manager