We had trouble waiting for a ticket to close out, and that’s one of the things 103 addressed.”
#Colquitt emc update
Colquitt EMC’s Manager of Information Technology Jeffery Patterson says, “We were on the schedule to do the update later because it was relatively new, but Chris assured us that OMS would run faster. Under the advice of Futura’s VP of Business Operations Chris Lahman, the co-op ran the new OMS 3.00.103 system update just before the storm.
#Colquitt emc full
“OMS cut at least a full day off restoration time, maybe a day and a half.” Howard agrees, “It just made everything flow that much easier.” FuturaOMS offered the opportunity to prioritize according to the number of customers out on a particular case, a feature that Colquitt EMC’s Manager of Engineering Charlie Tucker lauded.
#Colquitt emc software
For Colquitt EMC, one of their biggest hurdles in restoring power was clearing trees off of downed lines.Īlready a combined SEDC and Futura Systems’ customer for the past three years and having positive experiences with both SEDC’s UPN software and Futura Systems’ Outage Management System, Colquitt EMC turned to the software and supporting team to restore power quickly. Storm damage like this is common with hurricanes. We had to cut the trees off the line and pick the power lines back up, straighten them up, and replace the broken poles.” The bad part was the wind with the trees knocking the power lines down. According to Howard, “We did have several transformers that burned up, but that wasn’t the bad part. Out of the 65,000 meters on the utility’s lines, 38,000 were out of service. “Part of our system got hammered big time!”Ĭolquitt’s system had taken a huge hit, and as the storm settled down, Colquitt’s crews knew they had their work cut out for them. “It was worse than what we thought it would’ve been because the eye went through the middle of our system,” Howard says. By that time, we had the crews organized so that could send them to certain areas, certain feeders, and they could start working.”Įven though the co-op anticipated the storm and took every possible step to prepare for it, the damage was worse than expected. Most of the storm had passed through by daylight, and the winds had died down enough where they could get out and start doing some work. We regrouped with everyone at 6:30 Friday morning.
![colquitt emc colquitt emc](https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/valdostadailytimes.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/b/79/b7978845-4820-5f62-9c6e-881dd4c01580/57ecae620a29c.image.jpg)
Then the conditions got too bad for them, and we had to call them in. “We had some guys working out in the field till about 2:30 a.m.
![colquitt emc colquitt emc](https://harrelljacksoninc.com/assets/Uploads/Colquitt-EMC__ScaleMaxWidthWzEyMDBd.jpg)
“The storm hit around midnight Thursday, Friday morning,” Howard goes on to say.
![colquitt emc colquitt emc](https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/moultrieobserver.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/2/41/2412fab8-bb9c-11e9-a294-c3fea864b2fc/5d4f0bf296812.image.jpg)
The dispatchers were able to handle them by themselves, at that point. Colquitt’s GIS Manager Scott Howard recalls, “The calls were coming in just a few at a time. Colquitt started to receive the first wave of outage calls from their consumers around 9:30-10:00 that evening. Their workforce plus the additional help from surrounding utilities gave the utility around ninety linemen out in the field. The co-op had sixteen of their own crews, eight Field Service Representatives (FSR’s) from Mitchell EMC in Camilla, Georgia, and a construction crew from Coweta-Fayette EMC out of Palmetto, Georgia. By September 1, 2016, Colquitt EMC had assembled a team to tackle the potentially high volume of storm outages that typically accompany a hurricane.