How Helicopter Saws & Satellite Eyes Prevent Blackouts | Cindy Devlin-Musick

Cindy Devlin-Musick, Director of Vegetation Management, reveals the complex, high-tech world of keeping trees off power lines to prevent 70-80% of all outages. From helicopter aerial saws to satellite imagery that detects sick trees from space, learn how utilities proactively manage thousands of miles of forest to ensure reliability and how these same practices can create essential habitats for pollinators like Monarch butterflies.

In this episode, you'll learn about:

• The Scale of the Problem: Why trees are the number one cause of power outages.
• High-Tech Tools: How satellite data, based on leaf chlorophyll levels, helps find danger trees.
• The Aerial Saw: Using helicopters to trim trees in the most inaccessible areas.
• Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM): The science of selectively controlling tall-growing trees while promoting beneficial, low-growing habitat.
• Pollinator Highways: How power line rights-of-way become crucial corridors for butterflies and songbirds.
• Why Trees Fail: A deep dive into the research on tree biology and biomechanics to predict and prevent failures.
• Overhead vs. Underground: The real costs and surprising environmental impacts of burying power lines.
• Customer Conversations: Navigating the sensitive issue of removing a member's beloved-but-hazardous tree.