Whenever a hurricane hits our Island, it is almost guaranteed that thousands of homes will lose their power supply. As a result, the phone lines at Belco almost instantaneously begin to ring. Little do they know that before they’ve dialled, the men and women at the electric company have already jumped into action.

One of the first things crews do when a hurricane hits is to ensure the critical IT systems and control and monitoring systems are functioning.

The manager of Belco’s C. Eugene Cox Operations Centre, Michael Maughan explains: “We make sure we can access them from the operations centre, our crisis centre. We make sure we have up-to-date hard copies of all our circuit charts and schematics, just in case we lose the computer systems, so we can operate off paper.

“We also make sure the hurricane procedures are up-to-date, and that the key personnel know what their roles and responsibilities are.”

Mr. Maughan says they want to be in a position where if for some reason they were to lose power to the facility, it will still function normally.

There are two phases of preparation which include a meeting to ensure hurricane procedures are up-to-date and when a hurricane is in the vicinity, key personnel are contacted to make sure they are on the Island.

Belco’s customer services manager, Damon Wade elaborates: “Then we go about making sure that all the supplies required for the hurricane emergency stores are stocked.”

Poles, wires, and other materials required for hurricane emergency restorations are stocked in the east, west and central parts of the Island, along with fully-fuelled and equipped vans.

“We want to have crews available in each section of the Island for emergencies, as well as other manpower to take care of trees, clearing material off the roads and away from homes,” adds Belco’s energy delivery foreman, Anthony DeSilva. “But we try not to do any work until it’s deemed safe by the operations centre.”

Safety of their staff and the public tops Belco’s priorities, second only to getting the power restored.

“Sometimes safety means that we have to delay our restorations,” Mr. Wade concedes. “The public needs to understand that we try to operate as safely as possible, but as far as the magnitude of what we have to accomplish, it’s a matter of being patient with Belco. Rest assured that as long as the lights are off we can’t make any money so we will always be moving as quickly as safely possible to restore services.”

When asked if there were things that the public could be doing to help Belco crews, immediately Mr. DeSilva chimes: “Don’t climb our poles! We get a few impatient people who, maybe after a week or so think they can fix it themselves.”

“We do have some bold people out there, and if there’s anything that I would stress it is back to safety and patience first,” adds Mr. Wade. “As part of our strategy we will always work on the main lines first. And even that is prioritised based on importance. We always like to get the main lines done first and then do branch lines to individual houses.

“Quite often a main line will come on and everyone in the neighbourhood would come on with the exception of a few people who have specific damage to their lines. They will get impatient because they think we’ve done something for their neighbours when in thing for their neighbours when in fact we really haven’t - we’ve energised the main line and everyone else on that line comes back on.”

“Patience is key, because even though we can see what is going on on our network, we can’t tell if an individual line is down in somebody’s backyard,” adds Mr. Maughan.

“It takes a few days after a big storm to fully survey the extent of the damage, and to get an idea of exactly what needs to be fixed.

He continues: “We’ve also got that automated call-in that will tell the customer that we are aware the power is out and they might automatically assume we know what’s wrong and exactly what to do to fix it. But it takes guys on the ground walking through the bushes and backyards looking at damage, taking notes and bringing it back so that we can make a plan of attack on how to restore power to those areas.”

According to Mr. Wade, there have been two or three storms in his experience where Belco had to enlist the services of extra security to guard the gates against unruly customers demanding their service restored and willing to resort to violent measures, or attempting to direct the trucks to their own properties. Mr. DeSilva wants to stress the importance of the public tending to their own trees to save the hack job that might come later, when Belco takes the reigns.

He warns having a clearance of at least eight feet from the power lines, and to never cut them yourself, but to rather contact Belco, who will give you a hand.

“As long as you keep in mind that we’re not certified horticulturists and it may not look exactly as you’d like when we’re done,” he chuckles.

As for the customer service representatives on the receiving end of those frustrated phone calls, Mr. Wade points out that although they are kept as up-to-date as possible on the status of electricity after a hurricane has struck, they are situated in a separate building from the operations centre.

“Because they’re so removed they might not even be aware that they have no power themselves. They’re here long hours, fielding phone calls and working hard.

“We ask that the public be patient with our reps as well.”

Mr. DeSilva concludes: “The public just needs to understand that we’re doing our best under the worst conditions possible.”

Always ready for an emergency