iFactor Consulting

A few weeks after Hurricane Irene slammed the east coast, iFactor gathered together a focused group of utility representatives to share ideas and information on how they managed their communications process during this major storm. Participants used this opportunity to discuss the use of outage maps, online outage reporting, texting, and other communications avenues during large events.

Utility representatives also shared some interesting Hurricane Irene statistics with us, including:

- About 50% of LIPA’s customers were affected: 523,000 out of 1.1 million.

- Utilization of LIPA’s website quadrupled during the storm.

- On Monday ConEd’s call center volume reached 3,000 calls per hour.

- ConEd had 281,000 site views from August 26 to September 2, while they usually get about 1,000 views per day.

- Central Hudson experienced significantly more damage than the worst storm in their history, but a lower number of customer outages.

- During the storm, Pepco had close to 500,000 page views on the reporting page of their website, and about 350,000 page views on their Storm Center map.

- This was the largest number of outages that National Grid has ever seen: about 1.4 million outages at one point.

We were also happy to hear excellent feedback from iFactor customers:

“We were able to make several adaptations to our system on the fly, and iFactor was very supportive in helping us get them into production and helping our customers get the information they were looking for.” – LIPA

“Outage mapping worked flawlessly. Our systems behind the outage map continued to work by and large, but for short times were overwhelmed. We never took the map offline, though.” – ConEd

“Our internal site is very important for customer service reps. Dispatchers are able to use the site to provide pertinent information to customers. This is a truly a significant and important feature that allows us to give really good information to customer service representatives. The internal site is a huge part of communication for us.” – Central Hudson

“iFactor has been incredibly supportive in helping us during Irene and since then on things we’ve followed up on.” – National Grid

Finally, we captured some great “lessons learned” from utilities as they reflected on communicating with their customers during the storm:

- While LIPA had never anticipated such a huge increase in web traffic during a storm, this highlighted the fact that their customers have access to the web even when their lights are out: “They might not have it at home, but maybe they’re going to the library, to work, or using a mobile device.”

- National Grid realized the importance of online information as customers clamored for updates: “The more information customers can get online, the less they hit our phone lines and keep the phone lines jammed up. That’s why it’s so important for us to have these web systems and keep them updated.”

- ConEd saw the same benefit of online and mobile outage data: “The outage map is a terrific tool in providing information and deflecting calls from government representatives, media, and customers who might otherwise call and ask what’s going on. When you enhance transparency with these types of tools it satisfies these types of inquiries.”

- LIPA used iFactor’s ETR Manager to control what outage information was displayed on their Storm Center map during the hurricane. This tool becomes very helpful during major storms, as many utilities’ outage management systems aren’t able to provide an accurate depiction of what’s happening at all times.

- Central Hudson relied heavily on their Storm Center alert banner and admin tool, using the former to communicate their general restoration goal quickly and easily to the media, and using the latter to manually update outage information and display dry ice distribution locations.

- Central Hudson also recorded the Hurricane Irene event on their Storm Center site using the Event History Manager tool, which will provide great data for their post storm analysis.

As a record setting storm during a time when customers are demanding more information through online and mobile channels, Hurricane Irene provided a great opportunity for utilities to gauge their readiness to respond to these customer needs. iFactor is able to offer utilities the tools needed to satisfy these customer demands with products that allow customer communication via the web, texting, and mobile access.

Over 6.4 million customers lost power as Hurricane Irene moved up the eastern coast, making landfall on August 27th. With few eastern electric utilities spared, recovery from Irene continues and approximately 580,000 customers were still without power one week after the storm.

Irene caused an estimated $10 billion worth of damages and over 40 deaths. Various stages of destruction still exist from North
Carolina all the way to Maine, with damages ensuing from a variety of storm outcomes, ranging from inland rain, flooding, coastal storm surges, and high winds uprooting trees.

Nine utilities using Storm Center were particularly affected by Hurricane Irene. These utilities serve over 11.5 million customers combined, and at the height of the storm damage were working to repair outages to over 1.5 million customers. Service territories include North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, New York, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C.

Storm Center was put to the test during the hurricane and subsequent stages of recovery, delivering real-time outage information to desktops and smartphones. By displaying outages on a Storm Center map, utilities were able to quickly communicate information such as the number of customers affected, estimated restoration times, dry ice stations, crew status updates, and other critical storm data. Using smartphones, customers were able to stay up to date on outage information even while displaced from their homes.

A utility in the Maryland and Washington D.C. area delivered outage information using their Storm Center smartphone application, with more than 4,000 new app downloads during the hurricane. Another utility in New York saw a sharp increase in visits to their website, with over one million page views during the storm.

Some utilities took advantage of Storm Center’s advanced features including outage history charts, showing number of outages and number of affected customers over the most recent four days. The outage history chart clearly communicates the utility’s progress in restoring power. Other utilities displayed locations of service stations such as dry ice trucks and outreach vans. Storm Center’s ETR manager tool was used to manually update estimated restoration times, making sure the public had the most up-to-date information possible.

Overall, Storm Center withstood the marked increase in demand for outage information throughout the damage assessment and restoration phases. With utilities focusing on restoration efforts, Storm Center acted as a highly reliable communications tool for emergency responders, customers, and the media. As an added benefit, because Storm Center provides customers with up-to-date, outage information, call center traffic was significantly reduced by automatically answering the age old question on everyone’s mind: “when will my power be restored”.

The key to surviving any catastrophic event is to be prepared. During Hurricane Irene, iFactor’s Storm Center outage maps and mobile applications proved once again that providing customers with convenient access to outage information improves overall communications, significantly reduces call center traffic, and greatly enhances customer perception and satisfaction throughout the event.