Maine Ice Storm Recovery Aided by Digital Document System
By Jim McClure
By any account it was a storm of immense proportions. The snow and ice storm that paralyzed Maine in January left 275,000 of 530,000 Central Maine Power Co. customers without electricity.
The most punishing ice storm in Maine`s history prompted President Clinton to declare 15 Maine counties federal disaster areas. The weight of the ice snapped tree branches and pulled down power lines like a giant frost-laden monster stampeding through the forests and towns. The extent of the damage prompted the dispatch of emergency repair crews from many states as well as the National Guard.
Repair Problem an Inside Job
With emergency repair crews arriving from as far south as North Carolina, Central Maine Power`s key problem was how to get these crews, who were unfamiliar with the territory, the circuit maps and diagrams they needed to begin repairs. The essential areas of Central Maine Power`s headquarters in the state capitol of Augusta were operating on generator power, but the reprographics system to create the circuit maps and diagrams was without electricity for a day and a half. Anthony Gause, Central Maine Power reprographics coordinator, came in just after the department had power restored, and just in time to put the reprographics department to the test. “I had all the substation design drawings and the circuit maps (showing all the power line locations). All of our districts were hit real hard,” said Gause.
At first, Glenn Gagne, Central Maine Power design and tech support supervisor, was out in the thick of it. “There`s no such thing as a supervisor when there`s a power emergency. Everyone pitches in to get the job done.” Before the call for relief repair crews, Gagne had spent the first few days of the crisis requisitioning extra 4-wheel drive vehicles for Central Maine`s crews who needed transport to hard-to-reach areas. Then came the utility crews and equipment from out of state. The four-day-long storm had ended but the battle to restore power had just begun.
Digital Solution Heats Up the Ice
The night before the ice storm hit, Central Maine had installed a new Ocàƒ©-Engineering 9800 high-speed digital engineering printing, copying and scanning system. This new system would have to be a racehorse and workhorse to win the race against the initial storm and a developing one that was heading for Maine. “When we gained the extra workforce from out of state, that`s when our new technological capabilities came in really big,” said Gagne. “You have to quickly give your people in the field the knowledge of where every piece of equipment and `red tag` (first priority) equipment is.” Due to the widespread impact of the storm, the production of circuit maps and diagrams was unprecedented.
“We produced 50 sets of the maps every day, with 175 maps in each set,” said Gause, who operated the system throughout the month for 12 hours a day, six days a week. “It was a big operation. We had to get the three-phase lines up first. They`re the main lines you need to restore power to other lines,” said Gause, who had to reproduce and distribute different-sized documents in step with the men and women doing the repair work. “We had the line crews and tree crews out there, as well as planners in the 17 district offices, which became a repair headquarters for each region.”
Tree crews cleared the drooping and snapped branches and other debris near the broken and downed lines snaking beneath silent transformers throughout Central Maine. Large regional maps went to the district offices and in the hands of the field crews who got the precise power line and substation diagrams they needed to quickly find, diagnose and repair the far-reaching damage.
The crucial information on district office walls, utility truck dashboards and in lineman pockets high atop cherry pickers, arrived from the reprographics department via makeshift couriers and high-speed network transmission.
As for the intense pace of copying, “All I had to do was scan the drawing once, then it was ready to make multiple copies,” said Gause. This was a great source of relief. The scanning software requires no extra work for the operator, giving him the time to fully focus on feeding documents into the scanner.
Fulfilling the Need for Speed
In the reprographics realm of printing, copying, scanning and networking documents, fast input must be joined by speedy output to provide the solution. In Maine and much of the Northeast and Quebec, that speed played a part in saving lives, property and businesses. “We didn`t have to change paper rolls frequently, which saved us a lot of time,” said Gause, who had on-line access to the four-roll media feed (more than a half-million media feet). “Not changing rolls saves an incredible amount of time and time was something we didn`t have.” Gause made quick work of a tough situation, since the new system could copy eight E-sized documents per minute and automatically prints up to 999 sets.
Although Gause and Gagne were armed with this firepower, and utility crews were rapidly receiving all necessary information to swiftly make repairs, one final challenge awaited.
Power had been restored to all but 488 customers in the two weeks since the storm took its toll. That number jumped overnight to 75,000 when a second storm cascaded 10 inches of snow on the state, and glazed it with a thick topping of ice with its line-snapping weight. Many of the blacked-out areas were not affected weeks earlier, and were more populated than previous power outage locations.
At the time, Central Maine Power spokesman Mark Ishkanian was quoted in one newspaper account as saying, “This is a setback, but we made extensive preparations for this type of event. We have every available resource working to restore power. More crews are prepared to come to Maine if needed.” Working with the new system, Gause continued business as usual, at least what was usual since the first days of the first storm. Finally, after another week, all electrical power was restored.
“Normally, we do eight to 10 thousand linear feet of printing for a whole month,” said Gause. “During the three weeks of storm recovery we processed three times as much. Without the new system we`d probably still have been printing well into February.”
Technology Proven
Gagne had originally recommended the purchase of the Ocàƒ© system after careful analysis. “The chief reasons we selected it were performance, ease-of-use and the cost-efficiency. The Ocàƒ© Repro-Station software, which allows us to direct printing and copying right from our own CAD systems was another major plus.”
Looking forward to any crises that may lie ahead should major power disruption on such a massive scale recur, Gagne said with newfound conviction that the scanning, printing and copying system will meet the challenge. Reflecting on the three-week-long struggle against the awesome forces of winter, he said, “I don`t ever want to be in that position again, but if I do, I want that equipment involved.”
Author Bio
Jim McClure is a writer/journalist living in Geneva, Ill., in the western suburbs of Chicago. His reporting experience includes work with Midwest and East Coast utilities, as well as coverage of natural disasters including tornadoes, flooding and hurricanes.
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Left, Central Maine Power worker controls traffic while his fellow worker navigates the cherry picker through ice-laden trees. Right, a Central Maine Power worker battles the frigid cold to restore power to thousands of Maine residents.
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Glenn Gagne, Central Maine Power design and tech support supervisor (left), and Anthony Gause, Central Maine Power reprographics coordinator (right), review a map before it is sent to the field.
