Duke takes heat over extended outages, replies

Jul. 3—In the aftermath of Thursday's severe storm, many Vigo County and Wabash Valley residents have gone without power for four or more days.

Some, including Ken Fitzlaff, are critical of the utility's response and believe more could have been done and in a speedier time frame.

"Duke Energy had the opportunity to have hundreds more additional linemen working in our community to restore power sooner. They declined this additional help very early during the emergency," he said in an email.

He referred to a Friday report on the WTSP-TV (Tampa Bay) website which said, "Duke Energy scrapped the plan to send local crews and contractors in Florida to help with the aftermath of damaging storms that ripped through Indiana this week. ... leaders with the electric company explain because of the restoration progress of crews and contractors, the extra help is no longer needed."

Fitzlaff, a Vigo County resident impacted by the power outage, also believes that Duke Energy's emergency preparedness plan was not sufficient, and he suggests that upgraded infrastructure could have mitigated or prevented the damages. "I don't think over the past decade or so, as we've seen rate increases meant to improve the quality of infrastructure, that those changes have been implemented."

In a letter to the editor sent Monday morning, Fitzlaff wrote, "While we should praise the men and women who have worked tirelessly over a holiday weekend to restore power to so many, we should not absolve a relative monopoly such as Duke Energy from shirking responsibility for this disaster."

As of 3 p.m. Tuesday, Duke reported local outages in and around Terre Haute were down to 3,517.

That represented a significant decline from mid-morning Monday, when 18,600 in Vigo were still without power from storms that began Thursday.

Initially after Thursday's storm, 58,000 Vigo County customers were without power.

Angeline Protogere, Duke spokeswoman, responded that the company initially directed Florida crews to travel to the area while it continued to look for workers that were closer to Indiana.

"We successfully found the needed workers closer, allowing us to minimize travel time and customer expense while increasing our workforce much sooner. We had more than 1,900 workers in the field on Sunday alone, most of them working in our west central region," she stated in an email.

In addition to Duke Indiana crews, they included resources from the company's Ohio/Kentucky operations, the Carolinas, in-state contractors who regularly work for Duke during storms, and help from NIPSCO, a northern Indiana utility. (She couldn't confirm if NIPSCO was in the Terre Haute area).

Initially, Florida crews were part of the plan, but "in a storm of this scale, we have to move fast and sometimes original plans change.

"In this case, we decided to rely on crews closest to home who could get here the fastest. Also, for reasons of safety, our linemen work staggered, 16-hour shifts, so it's important to minimize travel time when we bring in crews," she stated.

She also explained how the company prioritizes where and how it will restore power.

"When we restore power, we start with major power lines — the type that run between cities — where we can restore the largest number of customers to service, and we also focus on essential services like hospitals and water pumping stations.

"Then, we move to the main lines in cities — again, where we can restore the most customers.

"Then, the time-consuming work begins going into neighborhoods and backyards. At this level you may restore service to only a few customers at a time, but it can take a long time for each fix. You multiply that by hundreds of individual outages and you see the challenge and why restoration slows," she stated.

All of this process starts with assessing the damage to figure out what crews will be dealing with.

"While we progress with repairs, we often find more complex damage, and that was the case in Terre Haute. We had miles of power lines down and dozens of broken utility poles. Add to that the multiple layers of storms we experienced through the weekend and that is why restoration took longer than original estimates," Protogere wrote.

"Ongoing weather has been a challenge. In some cases we had to repair the same infrastructure two or three times because new storms came through and tore down what we had just repaired. The new storms also added to our power outage numbers."

As far as criticism about it's emergency response and planning, Protogere stated, "Both in terms of number of customers affected and complexity of damage, this storm was among the most significant in our Indiana operation's history."

The company does careful emergency planning and preparations and did so for this storm, "including arranging early on for more than 1,000 additional workers to supplement our statewide workforce. This storm was unique in that it was widespread, affecting nearly all of our 28 districts statewide," Protogere stated.

The company is aware it's been a long, hot weekend for many, "and we appreciate our customers' patience. Our crews have been working long hours to restore power as quickly and safely as possible," she said.

She also responded to criticism about outdated infrastructure.

"We are in the midst of a multiyear upgrade of our electric grid," she said. A second, six-year phase is underway; it uses smart technology to reduce the number and duration of power outages.

That plan builds on a prior grid modernization program that replaced aging infrastructure, including:

* Upgraded, replaced, or repaired more than 31,000 poles.

* Rebuilt or improved more than 1,000 miles of overhead power lines and replaced or restored more than 670 miles of underground cable

* Installed 37 "self-healing" networks on the electric grid that in 2021 helped avoid more than 31,000 customer power outages and 2.8 million customer minutes of interrupted service, according to a 2021 news release.

Protogere also addressed the company's notification of, and changes to, restoration times.

"We do our best to estimate restoration times and emphasize that the times could changes based on changing conditions, as an example, more severe weather like we had," she stated.

"We know customers count on our projections and we try to do everything we can to deliver on them. When circumstances like more storms occur, sometimes we have to reevaluate and adjust."

Sue Loughlin can be reached at 812-231-4235 or at sue.loughlin@tribstar.com Follow Sue on Twitter @TribStarSue