Our Stories: Line to Line: When a Call for Mutual Aid Came, Con Edison Answered

When Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck a wide swath of the Southeastern United States in late September and early October, they impacted millions of people—leaving hundreds dead and inflicting billions of dollars in damage across the region. The storms also caused widespread destruction to power grids, leaving many communities without electricity.

Con Edison Joins the Recovery Effort

As it has in previous natural disasters, Con Edison played a role in recovery efforts. Our company deployed crews of overhead line workers, supervisors, and other support teams to assist with restoring power to affected areas in West Virginia, Virginia, and Florida.

A total of 62 employees, from both Con Edison of New York and Orange & Rockland, took part in the response.

Sean Jasper—section manager, Electric Operations, Bronx & Westchester Overhead—was Con Edison’s incident commander during this deployment. He’s an experienced hand when it comes to mutual aid response, having previously been part of our recovery operations in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Mutual Aid Work is Challenging

Jasper said the work often performed in mutual aid scenarios is roughly similar, with the major differences often a combination of the terrain and the voltages used in a particular service territory. In West Virginia, the topography was more mountainous and resulted in working at higher elevations. This presented unique challenges for power restoration crews, requiring the assistance of helicopters to help trim trees, employing heavy machinery to clear brush for vehicle access, and the use of bucket trucks as many lines were situated in the backyards of homes. Then there was the frequent presence of small but persistent irritants. “We had to use a lot of bug spray,” Jasper joked.

After spending a week in West Virginia and Virginia, the host utility, American Electric Power (AEP), released our crews, who then made the long trek to Florida at the request of Florida Power & Light (FPL) to prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Milton.

Florida’s Recovery: A New Set of Obstacles

Once the storm passed—crews were housed safely away from the eye of the storm—our teams set to work, performing most of their duties in and around the Gulf Coast city of Sarasota. The restoration efforts focused on rebuilding critical infrastructure and power lines.

“[Mutual aid] is about matching requests and available resources,” said Matt Sniffen, vice president, Emergency Preparedness. “We’re not a very big overhead company, as two-thirds of our customers are fed from underground. Many companies are 10 times as big as we are in terms of line workers, but we try to do what we can. In the end, different parts of our organization—Orange and Rockland and CECONY and our electric general managers and VPs— decided how many people they could afford to send.”

Logistics are often one of the more challenging aspects of a mutual aid disaster response. Each host utility has their own way of doing things.

In West Virginia and Virginia, AEP allowed our crews to find their own lodging and food, though it sometimes required driving up to two hours to the nearest available hotel after a day’s work. Upon arriving in Florida, FPL handled lodging, which meant a range of options from sleeper trailers to a camp with cots set up to the occasional hotel. It’s also where our crews encountered an unexpected issue regarding lodging, owing largely to the scope of the recovery efforts.

“It was challenging for (FPL) because they had over 18,000 line constructors they had to place every night,” Jasper said. “We didn’t get notified of our lodging until pretty much after 6:30 (p.m.) every day.”

The Dedication of Con Edison’s Crews

Jasper said every employee who participates in a mutual aid disaster recovery understands the conditions they may encounter, and they all take part voluntarily. On this occasion, it involved working for 21 consecutive days—which our crews departed for immediately after working regular five-day work weeks—and required long hours traveling across multiple states.

“You know you’ll face a lot of different challenges,” Jasper said. “I feel better knowing I’m really helping people. There were people down in Florida that lost their homes, lost everything. Some of the sights were pretty terrible, so it was a good feeling knowing we could help some.”