Energy Providers Rethinking Infrastructure After Hurricanes

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Energy Providers Rethinking Infrastructure After Hurricanes

Reported by Associated Press
December 3, 2005 - 8:39PM

By PAM EASTON= Associated Press Writer=

JASPER, Texas (AP) _ East Texans made due in searing heat and humidity without air conditioning, sleeping in tents, bathing in rivers or creeks and relying on food handouts after Hurricane Rita sent the region swirling back to pioneer-day conditions.

It took weeks after Rita, and in some cases more than a month, to regain power after trees and other flying debris brought electrical poles, transmission towers and lines to the ground.

Now that the power is back on, companies such as Entergy Corp. and CenterPoint Energy are trying to figure out if their response was appropriate and where improvements may be needed. Never before had electrical providers considered scenarios in which back-to-back major hurricanes hit the same region.

"What is it we can do? Do we put bigger poles? Do we put concrete poles? Do we put lines underground?" said Don Cortez, CenterPoint Energy vice president of distribution and support. "We are looking at things we can do to 'harden the system."'

More than 766,000 Entergy customers lost electricity because of Rita and the lights went out for another 1.1 million during Hurricane Katrina.

In Texas, Entergy serves an area from the Texas-Louisiana border up into the piney woods of East Texas, down to the Gulf of Mexico and over to the north toward Houston. Entergy also provides power to parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas.

CenterPoint, which delivers electricity throughout Texas and 14 other states, recorded 700,000 customers without electricity.

Katrina, which devastated much of Louisiana and parts of Mississippi in late August, was followed less than a month later by Rita, which came ashore near the Texas-Louisiana border.

"Entergy this year has gotten devastated," said Sam Jones, chief operating officer of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates Texas' main electric grid.

Among the problems CenterPoint faced as it worked to restore power was feeding and sheltering workers, who were in place before the storm and busy working afterward.

Many of those who fled Katrina evacuated to Texas, filling hotel rooms throughout southeast Texas as Rita approached and leaving no place for electric workers to stay. Many ended up sleeping in their trucks or setting up tents in parking lots.

Evacuations, which jammed interstates and sent food providers fleeing along with other Gulf Coast residents, also complicated things for CenterPoint. Company officials found themselves scratching their heads about how to feed workers. The company ended up finding a way to get thousands of sandwiches delivered daily from a town that Rita hadn't paralyzed, Cortez said.

"Going forward we are probably going to be looking at our plan and saying we really need to be self-sufficient for probably two or three days before the storm hits and probably three or four days after," he said.

The evidence of destruction to East Texas' power infrastructure loomed everywhere in the weeks after the storm. Power poles blocked roadways and lines that once carried electricity crisscrossed people's driveways and front yards.

Entergy had 10,000 electric poles grounded by Rita. Some of the company's larger transmission towers were also dismantled.

Entergy Texas spokesman David Caplan said Rita was more destructive to the company's infrastructure than Katrina. He said the restoration cost between $200 million and $300 million.

At one point 82 percent of the company's transmission lines, covering more than 3,800 miles, were down because Rita uprooted and flung trees into power poles or lines.

"It just really took its toll," Caplan said. "There was a massive amount of destruction, almost unprecedented in terms of what we have seen in the past."

Electrical poles are typically designed to withstand Category 3 hurricane-force winds, but certainly can't withstand falling trees, Cortez said. Rural wooded areas add an extra wrinkle in that it can take the restoration of numerous poles just to reach one home or business. In cities, one pole can power dozens or hundreds of customers.

Putting electrical lines underground is one solution, but many have found it is too costly to install and repair buried lines. Providers have also considered interconnecting existing electrical grids to allow electricity to flow to another area when its infrastructure is damaged, but Jones and others say doing so could also mean that when one region loses power, everyone on the grid will too.

"Certainly, the more interconnections you have, the more flexibility you have, but also the more exposure you have," Cortez said. "There is no easy answer."

Caplan said no electrical grid is designed to withstand storms like Katrina and Rita.

"These are storms that don't come along more than once every so many years," he said. "You can build the most incredible, robust transmission system and yet when a storm like this comes along you are going to have downed lines, downed structures and downed everything."

While the lights were out, Pat Stiles, who runs the Belle-Jim Hotel in downtown Jasper, used a hand washboard to clean towels for the Navy and National Guardsmen who stayed at her seven-room bed and breakfast. Her hotel lost one room to damage from Rita.

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