This year, we at HES have tried to be more informative to our customers during outages. To do this, we’ve devoted personnel to keeping our website and Facebook page periodically updated during an outage. Our goal is to help our customers understand the scope of the outage, as well as provide status reports of the ongoing work to restore power. Facebook in particular has been a great way to reach customers. In addition to allowing us to post periodic updates of the ongoing outage restoration work, customers are also able to post comments and provide valuable information regarding damage to the electric poles and lines, with some even including pictures of the damage. This information is fed immediately to our operations department. Overall, customer feedback on Facebook has been overwhelmingly positive. However, we do receive a few recurring negative comments. We wanted to take the opportunity to address a few of these comments.
There have been comments that certain portions of town are given priority during the restoration of power, which is not the case. During any outage, every electric utility follows a standard process for restoring power. Power flows outward into the city from our four substations. Primary distribution lines carry power from the substations to large portions of town, typically serving hundreds or thousands of customers. Branching off of these primary distribution lines are tap lines. Tap lines typically serve smaller areas such as neighborhoods. Finally, service lines take the power from the transformers on the utility poles to each individual house. In a large outage, repair work always begins with the primary distribution lines, then to the tap lines, then finally to the service lines. If a primary distribution line is the power source, performing repairs to downline tap and service lines would not restore power. Once primary distribution lines are repaired, the remaining repairs are typically prioritized by performing repairs that restore power to the most people.
Another comment that comes up is that the HES electric system is not resilient, and outages can be caused by light winds. HES constructs our electric facilities according to National Electric Safety Code (NESC) standards to withstand high magnitude storm events. During the four large outages this year, high winds have blown down large trees, blown roofs off of commercial buildings, and in some cases, actually snapped utility poles in half. HES also has a continual process of trimming trees away from the electric lines to prevent blowing limbs from contacting the lines and creating a line fault. The HES system is resilient and reliable. But Mother Nature can bring forces to bear on our system that it is not rated to withstand. HES’ mission is to provide safe, reliable and economical electric and telecommunication services 24/7/365.
We would like to take the opportunity to thank our many customers who have been patient with us during the outages we’ve experienced this year. The HES lineman and telecom technicians are dedicated to keeping the power and internet on for the residents and businesses of Hopkinsville. When a storm attacks Hopkinsville and causes outages, our employees respond immediately, regardless of what time it is, or whether they just finished their normal day shift. In most cases, they work 12 hour or longer shifts during storm outage restoration. In addition, other HES personnel work behind the scenes, answering phone calls, posting updates for our customers, and running supplies, food and water to our lineman. We hate when outages occur, but rest assured, we do our best to get every customer back on as soon as possible.