Lessons learned.
That was the theme of the presentation by JEA CEO Paul McElroy to the utility’s board of directors Tuesday.
The subject of the presentation was Hurricane Matthew and JEA’s efforts to respond when more than 250,000 electric customers — about 60 percent of the utility’s total base –– lost power due to the storm.
“Many things went right. Some did not,” said McElroy.
The big issue in the “did not” category was related to a news release issued at 4:45 p.m. Sunday — about 36 hours after the hurricane had passed.
It stated that, with the help of repair crews from other utilities, JEA would “substantially complete our service restoration work for our customers able to receive power by (11:59) midnight Monday, Oct. 10.”
At the deadline, about 48,000 customers still were without electricity.
“In hindsight, we should have held back on that call,” said McElroy, who apologized for the confusion and frustration caused by missing the self-imposed deadline.
He said one of the lessons learned is JEA should improve communication with customers and better manage their expectations.
By midnight Friday, six days after the storm, electricity still was out at about 102 addresses.
“We thank our customers for the patience they demonstrated,” McElroy said.
He reported the mobilization of outside utility workers who came to Jacksonville — many before the hurricane arrived — to help restore utility service was the largest in JEA history by a factor of two.
More than 400 visiting workers were housed, fed and shuttled from hotels to staging areas during the restoration.
On the water utility side of the hurricane, JEA experienced 67 sanitary sewer overflows in four days during and after the storm.
McElroy said that was due to loss of electricity at many lift stations. Larger pumping facilities are equipped with backup generators, but some failed.
Heavy equipment was deployed and removed much of the overflow, but more than 10 million gallons of sewage were discharged onto the ground and into waterways.
Spills are difficult to control, McElroy said, due to the nature of the infrastructure.
“It’s a gravity system. Everything flows downhill. It’s a challenge of physics,” McElroy said.
Another historic aspect of Matthew was customers’ use of the internet and social media to communicate with JEA and each other.
McElroy reported there were more than 362,000 visits to the outage map at jea.com by nearly 238,000 unique visitors — about 100 times the usual traffic volume.
The Outage Center Information Page recorded more than 202,000 hits, about 60 times the usual number.
Facebook traffic was measured at 11,980 requests and Twitter had 2,000 tweets, about 60 times the normal volume.
About 60,000 customers used the website or a text message to report their power outage.
McElroy said JEA will analyze the data from the storm and its response and will develop methods to better perform during the next major weather event.
Board member Ed Burr supported a comprehensive review and improvement.
“I’d like not to have the next conversation about this after the next storm,” he said. “I think we can do better than this and we expect better than this.”
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