Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gary Sadlmayer here, Jim Rose, Lucy Chapman, and we welcome
Wendell Jung back to the program. Oppd's director of Customer Service, Windle,
Good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning Gary.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well, it's good to have you back. So we're down
to now pretty much almost a house to house scenario
right with the restoration.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, you're correct, Gary, we're doing circuit level restorations at
this point. What we're finding is still some significant tree
damage down in particular areas of town. We're working our
way into those services and hope to have many of
those customers back up with power yet today.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Okay, Now, I know it's hard to be specific, but
like I got an example here of one listener said
that he got he got the neighbors got a call,
he said, yesterday and they were told no power till Sunday,
and then two hours later they had power. They told
(01:00):
us this past Sunday evening it would be on still
no power. So how accurate can people expect these advisories
to be from LPPD.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, generally I would adhere to the messages that they
are receiving on their voice calls. The general situation comes
down to once we get into an area and begin working.
Then we can revise the estimates after we've assessed the
damage that's in those particular areas restorations. So more than anything,
(01:35):
we want to at least give people some guidance on
what to expect, and oftentimes those estimates may may be
a little bit off, but that's really more about the
timing of which when we get into the area and
actually start working on the repairs. Our teams go out
in different waves. So we have a group that heads
(01:58):
out and assesses damage, provides a general estimate of the
requirements for restoration. We provide some restoration times based on
previous outagy experience and what we've seen in the field,
and then we revised those accordingly as we learn more
after we get into the work. So I would just
(02:18):
ask for all those listeners out there please be patient.
We're working very hard to get power back to all
of our customers, but we at least wanted to give
some guidance for those who needed to make various plans
in accordance with our restoration timelines.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I know the CEO, mister Fernandez said yesterday. He addressed
it in a way, the idea of putting more lines
underground between the river and up to about what ninetieth
Street or whatever. And obviously it's an enormous project, and
he indicated you can't do all of it. Is there
(02:56):
serious talk Wendel about doing some of that at least?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, that's a great question. There's been some investigations into
that transition over over the years. As how you mentioned,
this isn't the the storm, isn't the reason why we
first started talking about that type of UH service service change.
There are there are many complicated factors that go into
(03:23):
figuring out how and where and when to do that,
and in specific areas where we have an opportunity, we'll
certainly provide those options to customers where where that is possibility,
but we'll continue to evalue evaluate that option for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
What can you tell us we're chatting with when will
young O p p D Director of Customer Service Win Well,
what can you tell us about when we're when we're
not in an outage, when times are normal, how much
effort is there and on being proactive about these areas
that aim to always be a problem in terms of trees,
(04:03):
their power lines and trees their power polls and so on.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Well, sure. We have a pretty aggressive vegetation management program
where we go into yards and we trim trees out
and away from the power lines. Of course, our arboris
are very careful about how they execute those activities. But
we we create tree canopies in some safety space so
that power lines won't be affected by trees. We do
(04:30):
that on a periodic cycle. Generally it's in the three
year plus or minus, you know, a handful of months
range of when we do the restoration and we're necessary,
we'll do some circuit rebuilds. But generally speaking, our first
plan of attack and our resiliency and a plan related
(04:51):
to reliability concerns due to tree related outages is to
just manage the vegetation and trim the trees.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
What should be the property owners responsibility? Should we be
more proactive in watching for potential issues around power lines
and get tree trimmers out and so on?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Right, and so we have we have a group of
three trimmers that are qualified to work closer to energize
power lines. We certainly help customers identify who those contractors are.
The number one thing I would say is if you
start to see that you have a tree that's ingressing
into a power line is report that to OPPD. We'll
(05:34):
get that into our maintenance cycle. Make sure our foresters
know about those areas, and we'll put that into our
vegetation management cycle. The other thing, the other thing that
I would recommend, and this and this goes a long way,
is understand the types of trees you're planning and where.
If you're adding new plantings, make sure you're not planning
them directly into power lines. If there are some situations
(05:58):
where there have been mods occasions to services and maybe
at one time they were clear and now they're encroaching,
make sure that you report those as well, and then
we'll certainly get that to our forestry group for vegetation
management as well.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
There's a claim floating around on social media that OPPD
assured these big operators, Facebook and Google that they would
be high on the priority list, they'd be first when
power goes out. Is there any truth to that?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, I think Javier addressed this in the mayor's press
conference yesterday. Our priority restoration is very limited to public safety,
so we're looking at areas like you know, of course,
our office, air force base, our police command centers, the
airport in particular and of course our hospitals. That's really
(06:49):
our priority. Beyond that, our priority goes into how do
we get the most number of customers restored in the
quickest amount of time. So there's no favoritism to ours,
Google or Facebook or any of the other you know,
major companies or headquarters that are in the area.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
We will always go to have you on.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Appreciate the time, absolutely, Gary, anytime,
Gary Sadlmayer here, Jim Rose, Lucy Chapman, and we welcome
Wendell Jung back to the program. Oppd's director of Customer Service, Windle,
Good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning Gary.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well, it's good to have you back. So we're down
to now pretty much almost a house to house scenario
right with the restoration.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, you're correct, Gary, we're doing circuit level restorations at
this point. What we're finding is still some significant tree
damage down in particular areas of town. We're working our
way into those services and hope to have many of
those customers back up with power yet today.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Okay, Now, I know it's hard to be specific, but
like I got an example here of one listener said
that he got he got the neighbors got a call,
he said, yesterday and they were told no power till Sunday,
and then two hours later they had power. They told
(01:00):
us this past Sunday evening it would be on still
no power. So how accurate can people expect these advisories
to be from LPPD.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, generally I would adhere to the messages that they
are receiving on their voice calls. The general situation comes
down to once we get into an area and begin working.
Then we can revise the estimates after we've assessed the
damage that's in those particular areas restorations. So more than anything,
(01:35):
we want to at least give people some guidance on
what to expect, and oftentimes those estimates may may be
a little bit off, but that's really more about the
timing of which when we get into the area and
actually start working on the repairs. Our teams go out
in different waves. So we have a group that heads
(01:58):
out and assesses damage, provides a general estimate of the
requirements for restoration. We provide some restoration times based on
previous outagy experience and what we've seen in the field,
and then we revised those accordingly as we learn more
after we get into the work. So I would just
(02:18):
ask for all those listeners out there please be patient.
We're working very hard to get power back to all
of our customers, but we at least wanted to give
some guidance for those who needed to make various plans
in accordance with our restoration timelines.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I know the CEO, mister Fernandez said yesterday. He addressed
it in a way, the idea of putting more lines
underground between the river and up to about what ninetieth
Street or whatever. And obviously it's an enormous project, and
he indicated you can't do all of it. Is there
(02:56):
serious talk Wendel about doing some of that at least?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, that's a great question. There's been some investigations into
that transition over over the years. As how you mentioned,
this isn't the the storm, isn't the reason why we
first started talking about that type of UH service service change.
There are there are many complicated factors that go into
(03:23):
figuring out how and where and when to do that,
and in specific areas where we have an opportunity, we'll
certainly provide those options to customers where where that is possibility,
but we'll continue to evalue evaluate that option for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
What can you tell us we're chatting with when will
young O p p D Director of Customer Service Win Well,
what can you tell us about when we're when we're
not in an outage, when times are normal, how much
effort is there and on being proactive about these areas
that aim to always be a problem in terms of trees,
(04:03):
their power lines and trees their power polls and so on.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Well, sure. We have a pretty aggressive vegetation management program
where we go into yards and we trim trees out
and away from the power lines. Of course, our arboris
are very careful about how they execute those activities. But
we we create tree canopies in some safety space so
that power lines won't be affected by trees. We do
(04:30):
that on a periodic cycle. Generally it's in the three
year plus or minus, you know, a handful of months
range of when we do the restoration and we're necessary,
we'll do some circuit rebuilds. But generally speaking, our first
plan of attack and our resiliency and a plan related
(04:51):
to reliability concerns due to tree related outages is to
just manage the vegetation and trim the trees.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
What should be the property owners responsibility? Should we be
more proactive in watching for potential issues around power lines
and get tree trimmers out and so on?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Right, and so we have we have a group of
three trimmers that are qualified to work closer to energize
power lines. We certainly help customers identify who those contractors are.
The number one thing I would say is if you
start to see that you have a tree that's ingressing
into a power line is report that to OPPD. We'll
(05:34):
get that into our maintenance cycle. Make sure our foresters
know about those areas, and we'll put that into our
vegetation management cycle. The other thing, the other thing that
I would recommend, and this and this goes a long way,
is understand the types of trees you're planning and where.
If you're adding new plantings, make sure you're not planning
them directly into power lines. If there are some situations
(05:58):
where there have been mods occasions to services and maybe
at one time they were clear and now they're encroaching,
make sure that you report those as well, and then
we'll certainly get that to our forestry group for vegetation
management as well.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
There's a claim floating around on social media that OPPD
assured these big operators, Facebook and Google that they would
be high on the priority list, they'd be first when
power goes out. Is there any truth to that?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, I think Javier addressed this in the mayor's press
conference yesterday. Our priority restoration is very limited to public safety,
so we're looking at areas like you know, of course,
our office, air force base, our police command centers, the
airport in particular and of course our hospitals. That's really
(06:49):
our priority. Beyond that, our priority goes into how do
we get the most number of customers restored in the
quickest amount of time. So there's no favoritism to ours,
Google or Facebook or any of the other you know,
major companies or headquarters that are in the area.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
We will always go to have you on.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Appreciate the time, absolutely, Gary, anytime,
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