NYSEG's Hurricane Season Preparation Strategy

In the face of climate change, New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) has rolled out a groundbreaking emergency response plan, designed to tackle the complexities of severe weather events. The plan, approved by the New York Public Service Commission, is a co-production of GridX and Latitude Studios.

At the heart of this new strategy is Adam Helman, the director of emergency operations at Avangrid, who emphasises the reshaping impact of climate change on the way NYSEG prepares for and responds to weather-related emergencies. Helman's personal experience of managing back-to-back storms last fall has led to a significant focus on mental health considerations for emergency responders in the plan.

The new plan acknowledges the challenges that prolonged work can have on the mental health of emergency responders, and outlines a comprehensive strategy to address this issue. This includes specific staffing matrices for different event types, with at least 175 trained employees dedicated to damage assessment.

Traditional planning approaches aren't equipped to handle such complex, overlapping scenarios. To overcome this, NYSEG's workforce management and response strategy heavily emphasise predictive modeling and advanced weather monitoring. The utility uses AI-driven outage prediction modeling to analyse weather forecasts against historical data, estimating potential impacts.

Unpredictable weather events are fuelling NYSEG's investment in predictive modeling. Helman cites examples of complex, overlapping scenarios like severe winter storms into the solar eclipse or an earthquake coming off the back end of a winter storm. The plan's three-tier classification system for resource deployment reflects this new approach.

The new emergency response plan also prioritises proximity and availability when deciding which crews to deploy. This ensures a swift response, particularly in rural areas where travel times can be significant.

Climate change has made high-stakes decisions in emergency response more complex due to changes in storm patterns. NYSEG is putting its emergency response plans to the test, as hurricane season has begun across the Northeast. The utility's focus on sustainability in emergency response is a reflection of the evolution in how utilities think about these challenges in an era of increasingly frequent and severe weather events.

The plan outlines a comprehensive strategy for managing routine outages to multi-day restoration efforts affecting hundreds of thousands of customers. Crucially, it also details the importance of maintaining a deep bench of trained personnel to ensure sustained operations during extended events.

Interested parties can find an interview with Adam Helman on the podcast With Great Power. The plan's co-producers, GridX and Latitude Studios, have worked tirelessly to create a solution that addresses the unique challenges of the modern utility landscape. With this new emergency response plan, NYSEG is leading the way in sustainable emergency response strategies.