EPB President Answers Common Questions About Storm Recovery Efforts

Chattanooga, TN (WDEF) – EPB President and CEO David Wade recently answered some of the most common questions the company has received since the storms Sunday evening.

Why in this case it is taking so long for some people to get their power back on?
Well, there’s just a massive amount of damage out there. We currently have a little over 1,100 folks working in the field, actually doing the restoration effort. It’s taking such a long time because the tornado came through, it just took out poles, wires, fiber, everything in its path. There are miles of line that’s just gone. W e have to go out and clean out the debris to find a place where we can actually set up a pole back and then set hundreds of poles and really frame poles, put in ropes and then come back and put in miles and miles of wires. That takes a while to do it even though we have an army of lineman out taking care of doing that.

Why would some people have internet, but not have internet?
Restoring service is somewhat a layering process. If a whole section of wires is down, we have to start off by putting the poles back up. Then we put the electric wires to go to the top of the poles and then we have to go back and put the fiber on after that.

I saw an EPB crew come by my house, but they didn’t stop and restore my power.
We have crews running in all parts of town, doing all different types of work. Some crews have certain amount of capabilities. Some have others and we’re trying to prioritize their work to impact the most people in the shortest amount of time.

All my neighbors have power but I don’t. Have you forgotten me?
We haven’t forgotten you. We will get to you. We’re just working as diligently as can to get to everyone trying to impact the most individuals we can at a single point in time.

How does EPB decide who gets power first?
There are a couple of things. One is some areas we just have to get power back in to a substation before we can turn anything back on so we have to prioritize areas in order the way they feed. Then outside of that, it really is about how we can have the greatest impact on the biggest number of individuals at a point in time.

We hear a lot about the Smart Grid. Why didn’t didn’t the smart grid work?
Actually it did work in a lot of our outlying areas but the area that was directly impacted with the tornado just took everything down with it, including the smart grid. A lot of our smart switches, all of the communications, everything has just gone and destroyed.

Why wasn’t EPB prepared for this?
I think we were prepared. We had crews here at the time; certainly we didn’t have 1,100 crews standing by just in case. I think we were prepared and then took quick action to get additional resources in as they became available.

What are other things that you think people may not understand about what’s happened and what’s happening?
It’s just such a massive effort. You think about assimilating 1,100 workers out in the field, trying to organize, prioritize, make sure we have the equipment, the the material they need that’s at the right spot. It’s just a even, how do how do we feed them? All the restaurants are closed. How do you take care of even simple stuff like getting laundry and lodging and a place for them to sleep, even a few hours a day. Then, how do we make sure that when they get to a job site, everything’s done and coordinated, so they can do the work they need to do as effectively as possible?

How do you get all these crews to help out?
We work with a lot of different contract groups, different utilities, a lot of support around the utility industry for helping each other. The first response for everybody is to take care of their own service territory. That’s why sometimes it’s a little bit a day or two before you can get more crews in because they’re restoring their own area. It may not have been hit as damaged as much as ours but when they finish they’re willing to release their crews to come help us, just like we do at times when others are impacted.

What would you like to say to all EPB employees and contractors who are working out in the field and also those who are answering all the calls?
I would just like to say thank you to everybody that’s working out there. We’ve got a tremendous team here at EPB. Folks are working long hours, doing everything they can to get our community back at business. I’d like to say thank you for them and say thank you to our community and our customers for your patience and understanding that these things do take some time and we’re working as diligently as can to restore service.

Now, I have heard of few people say, you know, this is America. Like we are the big city like why? Why is this happening? Like, what would you say to that?
Say you know I don’t know how you avoid the kind of damage we had today. Certainly a lot of times, I’ll hear a question like what couldn’t we just put everything underground? And we could certainly that’s a option for several billions of dollars and triple the electric rates, which I don’t think our community wants.

Did the TVA have any transmission lines down that service us (EPB) that they have to fix as well?
TBA did have some transmission. They’re rebuilding those. They have multiple feeds so we we have service back from TVA and have for a long time since early in the storm, but they do have transmission lines that they’re repairing as well.

David Wade became EPB’s President and CEO in 2016.  Wade began his career at EPB in 1983 as a line helper and quickly developed his leadership skills and hands-on knowledge of Chattanooga’s electric system. Wade holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He has served as senior manager and vice president of the Electric Power system as well as executive vice president and chief operating officer. He led the design and deployment of Chattanooga’s 100% fiber optic network, which is the communications backbone of the smart grid and drives the America’s first community-wide 10-gigabit network delivering cutting-edge internet, television and telephone services.