Mid-Missouri utility and restoration companies prep for storms
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
With severe storms expected to roll through Mid-Missouri on Tuesday evening, utility and restoration companies are preparing for the chance of having to restore power throughout the area.
“The lightning we really can’t control and that’s probably one of the biggest issues with storms like this,” said Laura Baker, who is the manager of member services at Boone Electric Cooperative.
While there is nothing they can do to prevent power outages or lighting, there is preparation involved. For Servpro, preparation means having the equipment and staffing ready to handle the size of the storm beforehand
During most thunderstorms, they can handle with the crew they have in-house. For bigger storms, they begin calling in reinforcements.
“That’s when we put in orders for temporary labor, rental equipment anything we don’t have on hand we get prepared to have on hand,” Kevin Lumber, project manager for Servpro, said.
For Boone Electric, that means bracing for an increased number of calls.
“First, we send home laptops with a lot of our people who answer the phones, so they are prepared in case we get a large number of calls outside of office hours,” Baker said. “We have a backup service that answers phones for us after hours, but sometimes that can be overwhelming for them. So, we have our MSRs who answer the phone. with their laptops, they can see where the member lives and get it reported.”
There are also plenty of steps people can take to minimize the risk of severe storms.
Boone Electric advises people to charge up devices -- such as a cellphone -- before a storm is set to roll through., Lumber stressed the importance of stocking up on supplies if the forecast looks especially grim.
“You usually can’t prevent it but what you can do is prepare for it. Have food on hand, have water on hand, have backup power have things like that,” Lumber said. “Maybe a can of gas in case gas stations are down.”
The most common types of damage that Servpro sees from severe storms include shingles being blown off the roof, broken skylights from hail, water damage, groundwater flooding and fires from lighting strikes.
“You always want to get your home inspected every few years if not every year,” Clayton Gause. a project manager at Servpro, said. “You want to get your roof looked at your foundation looked at, get your gutters gutters, drainage system, stuff like that. All that stuff, if the weather gets too bad can kind of overpower the protection.”
Another concern during storms is power outages. However, Boone Electric says there are things that people can do during storms to help restore their power faster.
“It’s really important to pay attention to things. If you hear a loud boom or if you know that a tree is fallen in your backyard and that’s when you’ve lost power. Telling us those types of things helps us know where the outage is and how to restore it faster,” Baker said.
Boone Electric also says they get a lot of messages from people through Facebook during storms. However, these messages are often directed not effective.
“We try to give alerts on our Facebook page just letting them know we are aware and where we have outages and that we are sending crews,” Baker said. “But telling us that they are out of power on Facebook is not a great idea. They can let us know by calling or through the app.”
If there are widespread outages Boone Electric has to prioritize which ones to address first.
“We try to go with the largest outage first and fix that if it’s fixable. Sometimes it’s maybe the easiest to fix, so there are different levels of trying to get the most members back on as quickly and safely as we can,” Baker said. “There might be people that are on oxygen and we really try to get to them but it’s never a guarantee of power.”
