BEFORE THE
PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION
OF MARYLAND
IN THE MATTER OF THE ELECTRIC
SERVICE INTERRUPTIONS IN THE STATE
OF MARYLAND DUE TO THE JUNE 29, 2012
DERECHO STORM.
*
*
*
*
*
CASE NO: 9298
June 29, 2012 Derecho Multi-State Outage
and Restoration Report
STAFF REGULATORY ECONOMISTS
WILLIAM LINZEY
AND
MATTHEW MANSFIELD
AUGUST 16, 2012
I.
BACKGROUND
On June 29, 2012, a severe thunderstorm, also known as a Derecho, crossed the
Eastern United States with heavy rain, hail, and wind reaching 80 mph. The U.S.
Department of Energy’s (―DOE‖) Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability
issued 11 Situation Reports spanning June 30-July 6 in an effort to track state-by-state
restoration efforts.1
Immediately, states and utilities came under scrutiny for their
performance during restoration efforts. Four presentations of this data are provided
below: (1) an overview of the restoration efforts by all affected states; (2) an overview of
the restoration efforts by the most highly affected regions; (3) utility-specific
performance; and (4) the available personnel for each utility during the restoration
efforts.
II.
ALL AFFECTED STATES
According to data provided by the DOE, 11 states plus the District of Columbia
(―DC‖) experienced significant outages2 as a result of the Derecho. Virginia experienced
the most customer outages, peaking at 1,076,051; followed closely by Ohio, 915,366; and
Maryland, with 899,171 customer outages at the peak.
1
2
See U.S. Department of Energy, Emergency Situation Reports: Ohio Valley & Mid-Atlantic
Summer Storm (June 30-July 6) available at:
http://www.oe.netl.doe.gov/named_event.aspx?ID=65.
DOE notes that the daily Situation Reports only present data for states experiencing over 1,000
outages at the time of issuance. U.S. Department of Energy, Emergency Situation Reports: Ohio
Valley & Mid-Atlantic Summer Storm ((June 30-July 6)) available at:
http://www.oe.netl.doe.gov/named_event.aspx?ID=65.
Table.II.1 lists the peak number of outages experienced by each state between
June 30th and July 6th of 2012. Although customer outages persisted in some states past
this reporting period, the DOE only provided updates through July 6th. In all cases,
except West Virginia with 19 percent, the number of customer outages persisting after
July 6th represented 2 percent or less of the respective state customers without power.3
Table.II.1: State Wide Customer Outages
State
Delaware
District of Columbia
Illinois
Indiana
Kentucky
Maryland
New Jersey
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Virginia
West Virginia
Total
III.
6/30/2012
10:00 AM
3:00 PM
22,728
10,231
68,567
67,671
1,818
23,385
135,177
122,947
52,616
51,321
899,171
863,880
7,538
915,366
30,846
1,076,051
643,284
3,478
827,174
24,226
967,292
630,954
3,853,162
3,592,559
7/1/2012
10:00 AM
3:00 PM
2,710
748
64,224
64,982
2,237
520
79,682
78,065
25,528
27,788
640,351
613,165
113,441
135,322
1,629
1,642
576,888
602,656
9,737
8,252
769,750
629,919
518,017
401,059
2,804,194
2,564,118
Outages
7/2/2012
10:00 AM
3:00 PM
7/3/2012
10:00 AM 3:00 PM
7/4/2012
9:00 AM
7/5/2012 7/6/2012
10:00 AM 10:00 AM
47,154
101,118
55,572
49,132
442,619
109,769
27,180
518,783
3,667
417,347
457,485
41,123
93,059
54,344
45,958
428,342
106,922
9,521
510,922
2,728
454,244
457,856
17,426
49,386
32,152
15,218
273,990
70,580
1,303
339,712
1,317
293,766
349,765
15,274
47,172
32,604
14,310
254,799
66,892
5,272
17,257
26,029
6,953
152,709
41,468
4,756
4,300
7,900
73,601
19,231
33,297
8,619
338,649
286,903
171,670
96,742
266,639
334,388
185,102
316,921
108,861
233,851
71,648
197,986
2,229,826
2,205,019
1,444,615
1,370,727
1,038,614
616,270
416,192
HIGHLY AFFECTED REGIONS
According to data provided by the DOE, four states plus the District of Columbia
represented over 93 percent of all outages caused by the Derecho as of 10AM on June
30th.
Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, and DC had 3,602,439 outages out of
the reported 3,853,162, or 93 percent. These five regions were the most highly affected;
large portions of the customer base experienced electricity interruptions. Table.III.1,
below, illustrates the number of outages as well as the percentage of each region’s
customers that were without power at the peak.
3
DOE calculated the percentage of total state customers using 2010 EIA Customer Data.
Table.III.1: Outages & Percentage of Affected Customers at Peak
Peak
State
% of Customers
without Power
25%
33%
14%
29%
63%
Outages
District of Columbia
Maryland
Ohio
Virginia
West Virginia
68,567
899,171
915,366
1,076,051
643,284
West Virginia had the least amount of physical outages with 643,284, but had the highest
percentage of customers without power, with 63 percent. Maryland, Virginia, and DC all
experienced similar conditions with 33 percent, 29 percent, and 25 percent of their
customers facing outages, respectively. Ohio, even with over 900,000 outages only had
14 percent of its customers experiencing interruption. Restoration of these outages was
nearly complete as of July 6th.
Table.III.2: Percentage of Peak Outages Restored4
State
District of Columbia
Maryland
Ohio
Virginia
West Virginia
Percentage of Peak Outages Restored
Peak
68,567
899,171
915,366
1,076,051
643,284
1-Jul
6%
29%
37%
28%
19%
2-Jul
31%
51%
43%
61%
29%
3-Jul
75%
70%
63%
73%
46%
4-Jul
92%
83%
69%
83%
51%
5-Jul
100%
92%
81%
90%
64%
6-Jul
100%
96%
89%
93%
69%
The above table demonstrates each state’s overall restoration effort. The District
of Columbia reached full Derecho restoration approximately between July 4th and 5th.
Maryland and Virginia, as of July 4th, had both reached 83 percent restored with
Maryland reaching 96 percent and Virginia reaching 93 percent as of July 6th, the last day
states were required to report to the DOE. West Virginia trailed all other regions with
4
The July 1 through July 6 figures are the values of the DOE AM reports. The situation reports
were issued twice a day from June 30 through July 3, one at approximately 10AM and the other at
3PM; July 4-6 only had AM reports. The equation used to find the percentage: 1-(AM
Outages/Peak Outage).
only having restored 69 percent at the end of the report period. The information
comprised in Table.III.2 is also represented graphically in Figure.III.1 below.
Figure.III.1: Percentage of Outages Restored
IV.
UTILITY-SPECIFIC OUTAGES AND RESTORATION PERFORMANCE
The five most highly affected regions all had numerous utilities working to restore
power back to their multitude of affected customers. Information only pertaining to five
of the utilities was gathered to create a comparative analysis; AEP Ohio, Appalachian
Power of West Virginia, Dominion Power of Virginia, Pepco in DC and Maryland, and
BGE in Maryland. These five utilities provide a complete sample of the overall
population of the companies who dealt with the consequences of the June 29th Derecho.
Maryland’s two largest utilities, BGE5 and Pepco6, combined had customer
outages totaling more than 800,000, approximately 94 percent of all MD’s outages, on
June 30th following the Derecho event. Another Maryland utility that was also highly
impacted by the storm was the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (―SMECO‖). The
utility experienced 61,745 outages immediately following the storm. By 8PM on June
5
6
BGE Storm Report to the Public Service Commission - 6/30/2012 at 4 PM.
See Pepco.com Violent Wind Storm Leaves 443,000 Pepco Customers Without Power (June 30,
2012) available at:
http://www.pepco.com/welcome/news/releases/archives/2012/article.aspx?cid=2048.
30th the utility had reduced its outages to 22,400.7 By the afternoon of July 3rd
approximately 300 outages remained within SMECO’s service territory, with complete
storm restoration being accomplished by that evening.8 The utility’s relatively small
number of outages and quick restoration time, compared to that of the other utilities
highlighted here, does not lend itself to useful comparison within this analysis. In the
course of assessing the efficiency of the five utility’s restoration efforts, a comparative
analysis from other states provides insight on their restoration progress. While
information has been attained from various other utilities in the highly affected regions, a
meaningful comparative analysis between Maryland’s two largest utilities and other
States’ proves difficult due to either a significantly varied number of outages, the types of
outages, and available workforce for restoration. Overall, only one utility, AEP Ohio,
provides a helpful comparative analysis of BGE’s and Pepco’s restoration efforts.
Table.IV.1 and Figure.IV.1 both illustrate the amount of outages suffered by each
utility at the peak as well as the remaining outages per day until July 8th.
Table.IV.1 Utility Specific Outages9
Utility
AEP Ohio
Appalachian Power (WV)
Dominion Power (VA)
BGE (MD)
Pepco (DC & MD)
7
8
9
Peak
573,000
323,000
988,000
403,997
443,000
1-Jul
436,000
289,000
388,000
285,456
276,508
2-Jul
384,000
259,460
237120
210,604
179,046
Number of Outages
3-Jul
4-Jul
5-Jul
260,000 171,000
92000
215,060 174,960
191,000
98800
49400
18,000
147,584
76,502
45,517
96,514
32,600
14,907
6-Jul
79,000
108,000
3,200
20,427
3,803
7-Jul
40,000
80,000
4,890
192
8-Jul
14,000
45,000
0
0
See SMECO News, Wind Storm Outage Update – July 3, 2012, 2 p.m., (June 30, 2012) available
at: http://www.smeco.coop/news/12-07-03/Wind_Storm_Outage_Update__July_3_2012_2_p_m.aspx.
Id.
These figures were pulled from various sources which will be sited throughout the text. Dominion
Power did not provide outage numbers for July 7 th and July 8th.
Figure.IV.1 Number of Outages by Utility
West Virginia bore the brunt of the Derecho event with 63 percent of all customers losing
power. On July 1st, 323,000 customer outages remained in Appalachian Power’s West
Virginia service territory, approximately half of all outages in the state.10 Due to the
diffuse population in West Virginia, recovery was significantly slower for Appalachian
Power than for utilities with more urban centers. With each feeder supplying only a
limited number of customers, restoration took significantly longer than a utility whose
feeders reach larger swaths of the customer base. From June 30th until July 3rd the utility
restored only 100,000 customers.11 Appalachian Power in Virginia, also a more rural
service territory, made similar progress, falling just shy of restoring 100,000 customers in
that period.12 Pepco and BGE, on the other hand, had restored more than 350,00013 and
250,00014 during that same period, respectively. However, with customer bases free of
10
11
12
13
14
See AppalachianPower.com, 60 Percent of Appalachian Customers without Service After Major
Storm (June 30, 2012) available at:
https://www.appalachianpower.com/info/news/ViewRelease.aspx?releaseID=1272.
See AppalachianPower.com, Power Restored To More Than 215,000 Customers; Restoration Will
Continue Through Weekend (July 3, 2012) available at:
https://www.appalachianpower.com/info/news/viewRelease.aspx?releaseID=1278.
Id.
BGE Storm Report to the Public Service Commission - 7/03/2012 at 4:00 PM.
PHI Storm Report to the Public Service Commission - 7/03/2012 at 8:00 PM.
large urban centers as in BGE’s and Pepco’s respective territories, Appalachian Power’s
West Virginia service territory does not provide a true comparison to the Maryland
utilities and does not substantively reveal anything about BGE’s and Pepco’s restoration
efforts.
The state of Ohio suffered outages on a level similar to Maryland and only in
certain areas. As of June 30th, two First Energy utilities in Ohio faced less than 100,000
outages combined;15 Duke Energy in Ohio faced 85,000.16 However, the Derecho hit
squarely on AEP Ohio’s service territory, providing a utility area comparable in outage
numbers with similar restoration efforts. AEP Ohio suffered 573,000 customer outages
on June 30th and by July 3rd had reduced that total number of outages to 260,00017—
performing in-between that of Pepco18 and BGE19. Of all of the utilities enduring the
Derecho event, AEP Ohio’s efforts most closely resembled BGE’s and Pepco’s. The
utility’s service territory contains a large urban center, Columbus, and it had a similar
number of outages. From June 30th to July 3rd AEP Ohio’s restoration trajectory largely
followed that of the Maryland utilities, but the next four days showed that it lagged
behind the Maryland’s utilities in performance.20 This discrepancy is likely because the
AEP Ohio’s outages were 100,000 higher to begin with and would likely need an extra
day to compensate for the difference.21 However, Pepco had 130,000 fewer than AEP
Ohio on June 30th,22 and managed to fall below 100,000 outages by July 3rd,23 whereas it
took AEP Ohio an additional two days to achieve the same level of restoration.24 On July
4th, Pepco25 and AEP Ohio26 had restored just over 400,000 customers. For Pepco this
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
See FirstEnergyCorp.com, FirstEnergy Utilities Restore Service to 314,000 of 566,000 Customers
Affected by Damaging Thunderstorm (July 1, 2012) available at:
https://www.firstenergycorp.com/newsroom/news_releases/firstenergy_utilitiesrestoreserviceto31
4000of566000customersaffe.
See Disaster Mapping, 72 Hours Into the Event – Nearly 2 Million Customers in the Dark from
June 29th Derecho (July 2, 2012) available at:
http://disastermapping.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/6292012-derecho-long-lived-wind-event/
AEP Ohio Media-Web Site Update Summary.pdf, p.8-37, 2012.
PHI Storm Report to the Public Service Commission - 7/3/2012 at 4:00 PM.
BGE Storm Report to the Public Service Commission - 7/3/2012 at 4:00 PM.
AEP Ohio Media-Web Site Update Summary.pdf, p.8-69, 2012.
Id. at 5.
Id. at 5.
PHI Storm Report to the Public Service Commission - 7/3/2012 at 4:00 PM.
AEP Ohio Media-Web Site Update Summary.pdf, p.48, 2012.
AEP Ohio Media-Web Site Update Summary.pdf, p.43, 2012.
PHI Storm Report to the Public Service Commission - 7/4/2012 at 4:00 PM.
represented 90 percent of its outages restored, but only represented restoration of 70
percent for AEP Ohio. By July 7th, Pepco had below 200 customers to restore while AEP
Ohio had 40,000 remaining outages. BGE’s rate of restoration lagged behind AEP Ohio’s
progress at first, but by July 4th BGE had 76,000 outages, almost 100,000 fewer than AEP
Ohio. On July 7th, BGE had fewer than 5,000 outages left to restore, which were
completed by the 8th.27 When the Maryland companies are compared to the Ohio utility,
which provided similar circumstances, BGE and Pepco’s restoration performance was
swifter than that of AEP Ohio.
Figure.IV.2 Number of Outages Restored Per Day
Figure.IV.2, above, illustrates the amount of restorations performed by each of the
five featured utilities in the aftermath of the Derecho. Notice that the majority of the
utilities performed fewer than 200,000 restorations each day with the exception of
Dominion Power in Virginia, who on July 1st accomplished 600,000 restorations. The
incredibly high number of restorations has created a great deal of discussion as to how its
27
AEP Ohio Media-Web Site Update Summary.pdf, p.69, 2012.
neighbors had not performed similarly. Dominion had extenuating circumstances that
allowed them to restore so many outages in the hours after the Derecho.
In the case of Dominion Power, the Virginia utility had 988,000 outages as of
June 30th and restored 600,000 of them by the following day.28 By July 3rd, the utility had
all but 100,000 customers restored. Dominion was very efficient in restoring heavy
numbers of outages resulting from the Derecho event.29 On July 1st, the company had
3,000 of its employees working on restoration, many of whom were dispatched from less
affected areas of the service territory to the most highly affected areas within the state,
specifically Northern Virginia.30 The Maryland utilities did not possess this ability as
both BGE and Pepco’s service territories were enveloped by the storm. Due to the size of
Dominion’s territory it immediately had access to almost double the amount of internal
restoration workers compared to that of BGE and Pepco. Additionally, there was a great
deal of damage done to Dominion’s transmission lines. In a press release issued on June
30, 2012, Dominion stated that it had restored power to nine out of ten transmission lines
which restored 275,000 customers, approximately 30 percent of all outages.31
In Maryland one of the state’s smaller utilities experienced a similar phenomenon.
SMECO, the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, had six transmission lines out as
of noon on June 30th. By 8pm that evening the utility had energized all transmission lines
and had restored approximately 64 percent of its outages.32 The restoration of
28
29
30
31
32
See Dom.MediaRoom.com, Dominion Restores Power to Approximately 600,000 Customers, Sets
Targets for Completing Restoration Efforts, (July 1, 2012) available at:
http://dom.mediaroom.com/2012-07-01-Dominion-Restores-Power-to-Approximately-600-000Customers-Sets-Targets-for-Completing-Restoration-Efforts.
See Dom.MediaRoom.com, Dominion Virginia Power A Day Ahead Of Target In Storm
Restoration, (July 3, 2012) available at: http://dom.mediaroom.com/2012-07-03-DominionVirginia-Power-A-Day-Ahead-Of-Target-In-Storm-Restoration.
See Dom.MediaRoom.com, Dominion Restores Power to Approximately 600,000 Customers, Sets
Targets for Completing Restoration Efforts, (July 1, 2012) available at:
http://dom.mediaroom.com/2012-07-01-Dominion-Restores-Power-to-Approximately-600-000Customers-Sets-Targets-for-Completing-Restoration-Efforts.
See Dom.MediaRoom.com, Dominion Virginia Power Restoration Effort Focusing First On
Public Safety, Transmission Lines, Detailed Damage Assessments (June 30, 2012) available at:
http://dom.mediaroom.com/2012-06-30-Dominion-Virginia-Power-Restoration-Effort-FocusingFirst-On-Public-Safety-Transmission-Lines-Detailed-Damage-Assessments.
See SMECO News, Wind Storm Outage Update – June 30, 2012, 8 p.m., (June 30, 2012) available
at: http://www.smeco.coop/news/12-06-30/Wind_Storm_Outage_Update__June_30_2012_8_p_m.aspx.
transmission lines has the ability to reach a large number of outage victims not affected
by other factors such as locked out feeders and/or downed trees.
Their similarity in demographics, geography, and region may appear to warrant a
comparison of BGE and Pepco with Dominion Power during their restoration efforts, but
the practicalities of the Derecho event did not put them into the same categories. The
available personnel for Dominion allowed it to quickly focus its efforts and alleviate
outages two days before the Maryland utilities had access to mutual assistance teams. The
most appropriate comparison to a utility out-of-state would be to AEP Ohio, who faced a
similar number of outages and did not possess the same large workforce that Dominion
had at its disposal on July 1st.33 Maryland’s utilities performed significantly better than
the Ohio utility in terms of restoration effort, particularly within the first four days of the
event. Table.IV.2 below illustrates this point with the percentage of outages restored from
the peak on June 30th through July 8th.
Table.IV.2 Percentage of Peak Outages Restored34
Utility
AEP Ohio
AP-West Virginia
Dominion Power
BGE
Pepco
33
34
Peak
573,000
323,000
988,000
403,997
443,000
1-Jul
23.91%
10.53%
60.73%
29.34%
37.58%
Percentage of Peak Outages Restored
2-Jul
3-Jul
4-Jul
5-Jul
6-Jul
32.98% 54.62% 70.16% 83.94% 86.21%
19.67% 33.42% 45.83% 40.87% 66.56%
76.00% 90.00% 95.00% 98.18% 99.68%
47.87% 63.47% 81.06% 88.73% 94.94%
59.58% 78.21% 92.64% 96.63% 99.14%
7-Jul
8-Jul
93.02% 97.56%
75.23% 86.07%
98.79% 100.00%
99.96% 100.00%
AEP Ohio Media-Web Site Update Summary.pdf, p.5, 2012.
This table is derived from Table.IV.1. In order to find the percentages the calculation of 1(Outages/Peak Outages).
On July 1st the percentage of outages restored were 29.34 percent and 37.58 percent for
BGE and Pepco, respectively. AEP Ohio had fewer than 24 percent restored in the same
time period. Both Pepco and Dominion Power had over 99 percent restored by July 6th.
Figure.IV.3, below, is an alternate view of the above table.
Figure.IV.3 Percentage of Peak Restored
V.
NUMBER OF CREWS PARTICIPATING IN RESTORATION EFFORTS
In the days after the storm, the utilities reported their respective personnel that
were assigned to restoration efforts in Maryland. The data among the utilities was not
consistent, with some utilities providing the detailed numbers of internal and external
employees, while others gave overall totals. Some utilities began reporting this
information faster than others.
BGE did not communicate personnel numbers to Staff until July 2nd, and by that
morning the utility had 1,230 full-time employees undertaking restorations.35 Full-Time
Employees (―FTE‖) steadily increased throughout the week, topping out at 2,900 internal
35
PSC Utility Recovery Report, 7/2/2012 at 2000 hours.
and contract personnel on July 5th.36 Mutual assistance personnel (―MAs‖) began arriving
on July 3rd, totaling 1,300,37 and they finished arriving on July 6th to peak at 1,870
personnel.38 BGE had over 3,500 personnel working from July 3rd through the 6th,
peaking at over 4,700 on July 6th. BGE’s available restoration personnel is illustrated in
Figure.V.1 below.
Figure.V.1 BGE Restoration Personnel
Pepco reported 374 FTEs, or internal personnel, and 554 contractors undertaking
restoration as of June 30th, with contractors increasing to 762 by July 1st.39 FTEs
increased to over 1,200 on July 2nd, peaking at 1,428 on July 3rd.40 Approximately 300
MAs arrived between July 1st and 2nd, with numbers increasing to 748 on July 4th.41 Pepco
36
37
38
39
40
41
PSC Utility Recovery Report, 7/5/2012 at 1600 hours.
PSC Utility Recovery Report, 7/3/2012 at 0000 hours.
PSC Utility Recovery Report, 7/6/2012 at 1600 hours.
PHI Storm Report to the Public Service Commission - 7/6/2012 at 4:00 PM.
Id.
Id.
had nearly 3,000 personnel working from July 3rd through the 6th. An illustration of
Pepco’s personnel is shown below in Figure.V.2.
Figure.V.2 Pepco Restoration Personnel
Outside the state of Maryland the information available regarding the utility’s
workforce is inconsistent. The DOE Emergency Situation Reports provided some figures
as to how many restoration personnel were dedicated to a certain utility. Appalachian
Power provided totals of both internal and external personnel in Virginia and West
Virginia. The company stated it had more than 1,500 personnel working on June 30th and
had roughly 4,200 personnel by July 6, 2012.42 AEP Ohio provided similar information
with roughly 1,000 personnel at the start of restoration and more than 5,000 personnel
were working on July 5th and 6th.43
42
43
See Energy.gov, Emergency Situation Reports: Ohio Valley & Mid Atlantic Summer Storm,
available at: http://www.oe.netl.doe.gov/named_event.aspx?ID=65.
Id.
Restoration resources for Dominion Power in Virginia were more accessible
through their press releases during the restoration. Immediately following the Derecho,
Dominion was able to organize a large restoration effort, but given that Dominion’s
service territory covers much of the state of Virginia, the utility had sizable human
resources from which to draw. Those employees arriving from less affected areas of the
state proved a valuable resource because the utility did not have to wait for help from
mutual assistance, and it could immediately undertake restoration. In addition, the utility
immediately had mutual assistance personnel totaling 1,200 on July 1st, giving the utility
a total of 4,200 personnel just one day after the event44 increasing to more than 5,000 by
July 2nd.45 In the available information regarding Dominion, no explanation was given as
to how Dominion was able to acquire the help of MAs so quickly and in such high
numbers. Figure.V.3, below illustrates the approximate amounts of internal and external
personnel Dominion had in its restoration efforts.
44
45
See Dom.MediaRoom.com, Dominion Restores Power to Approximately 600,000 Customers, Sets
Targets for Completing Restoration Efforts, (July 1, 2012) available at:
http://dom.mediaroom.com/2012-07-01-Dominion-Restores-Power-to-Approximately-600-000Customers-Sets-Targets-for-Completing-Restoration-Efforts.
See Dom.MediaRoom.com, Dominion Virginia Power Restores Service to More Than 760,000
Customers; On Track To Meet First Strom Restoration Goal (July 2, 2012) available at:
http://dom.mediaroom.com/2012-07-02-Dominion-Virginia-Power-Restores-Service-To-MoreThan-760-000-Customers-On-Track-To-Meet-First-Storm-Restoration-Goal.
Figure.V.3 Dominion Power Restoration Personnel46
In contrast to Dominion, Pepco had 928 total personnel working in the first hours
after the storm,47 which rose to nearly 1,500 on July 1st.48 Mutual assistance personnel for
Pepco did not exceed 70 until July 2nd.49 The utility did not have the advantage of calling
its own employees from areas largely unaffected by the Derecho and therefore did not
have the same working numbers as Dominion did. Likewise, BGE did not have mutual
assistance crews arrive until July 3rd, preventing it from working at a personnel level
rivaling Dominion Power’s.50 BGE’s own personnel working on restoration did not
exceed 1,230 (less than half of the human resources at Dominion Power’s disposal) until
the morning of July 3rd.51
46
47
48
49
50
51
This figure is based on numbers taken from the DOE situation reports as well as Dominion
Power’s press releases available at: http://dom.mediaroom.com/index.php?year=2012&s=26677,
PHI Storm Report to the Public Service Commission - 7/6/2012 at 4:00 PM.
PHI Report, ―MD PSC 7:30pm Info Req Pepco Portion,‖ – 7/1/2012 at 8:00 PM.
PHI Storm Report to the Public Service Commission - 7/3/2012 at 12:00 PM.
PSC Utility Recovery Report, 7/3/2012 at 0000 hours.
PSC Utility Recovery Report, 7/2/2012 at 2000 hours.
VI.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
At the time of this report’s filing there is still information that is unavailable. Staff
will continue the process of information gathering and any further findings will be
included in an addendum to be filed on a later date.