Utilities to Conduct Storm Restoration Drill to Help Prepare Employees for Real-Life Events
Ohio Edison and Pennsylvania Power, subsidiaries of FirstEnergy Corp., have announced they will conduct a training drill this week to test the companies’ storm restoration process for when severe weather causes wide-spread power outages in the region.
Designed to train employees assigned to storm outage duty on responses to major events, the drill will take place at Ohio Edison’s Regional Dispatch Office in Akron. About 50 company employees will play either a role or observe the drill.
As part of the training scenario, the company will send messages about the drill thru its social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter.
“FirstEnergy’s storm restoration process has been recognized repeatedly by electric industry organizations for its effectiveness and efficiency, but the goal of this type of exercise is to keep our skills up to date and to make additional improvements,” said Kevin Sestak, vice president of Operations for Ohio Edison, which also operates Penn Power in western Pennsylvania. “These drills are part of our overall strategy to invest in our system and our people to enhance service reliability.”
Storm drills are becoming more common in the utility industry in the wake of severe weather over the last several years. This is the third drill for Ohio Edison and Penn Power in the last several years.
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