Electric service is the foundation of our work and home lives, and few things interrupt them like a power outage.
Providing Clark County homes and businesses with affordable, reliable electricity is a responsibility Clark Public Utilities takes very seriously. To that end, the utility has a team of servicemen who respond to power outages in much the same way police and firefighters respond to emergencies.
When customers call in a power outage, those experienced journeyman line workers spring into action and they don’t stop until the situation is safe and a repair is underway — day or night, rain or shine.
For most of the year, servicemen split their time evenly between outages and maintenance — but during the height of summer and much of winter, this team stays busy responding to outages.
Air conditioners strain the power grid and increase the risk of outages during summer. Birds and squirrels, and lightning storms, also cause equipment to fail.
Strong winter storms can topple trees and send branches into power lines, sometimes plunging entire neighborhoods into the dark. So, from November to February, servicemen spend much of their time responding to outages.
“When we’re on call and something happens, we’ve got to be out the door and ready to work in an instant,” serviceman and journeyman lineman Jared Eddings said Aug. 27 at the utility’s Operations Center. “We actually started our day with an outage at 1:30 this morning and we won’t be finished until around 3 this afternoon.”
When customers report a problem — be it flickering lights in the home, a power outage during a storm, or a vehicle that just crashed into a utility pole — servicemen are the first on the scene to investigate, ensure the area is safe and, when possible, restore power.
“We have the equipment on our trucks to respond to about 90 percent of the outages we come across,” said serviceman and journeyman lineman Kenny Cudd. “If the job is too large, a line crew will be dispatched to fix it.”
In those cases, servicemen analyze the situation, identify what equipment must be replaced or repaired, the size of the crew needed, then relay that information to the utility’s dispatchers.
Above and beyond
Clark Public Utilities owns 6,600 miles of electric wire and 62,000 power poles across a 628-square-mile county, all of which is maintained and repaired on a routine basis.
Clark Public Utilities’ responsibility stops at the electric meter on the side of a home or building. Everything from there on is the customer’s responsibility. However, servicemen realize that most people don’t understand what causes electrical issues. After a serviceman is sure the utility’s equipment isn’t the cause of the problem, they’ll often do a quick assessment of the customer’s equipment to help identify the issue and walk them through the steps needed to fix it safely.
“Although it’s not our responsibility, we’ll do our best to give customers an idea of what the problem is so that information can be relayed to the electrician they hire,” Eddings said. “It’s our commitment to go above and beyond — our modus operandi. Plus, making a difference for folks makes this satisfying work.”
Energy Adviser is written by Clark Public Utilities. Send questions to ecod@clarkpud.com or to Energy Adviser, c/o Clark Public Utilities, P.O. Box 8900, Vancouver, WA 98668.
