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  • Hundreds of utility trucks lined the streets following Hurricane Katrina as Dixie Electric worked to restore power following the storm. More than 1,500 workers from 17 states participated in recovery efforts. Randy Smith, engineering manager for Dixie Electric, said new substations coming online soon will help the utility should another severe storm impact the area. Photo/Submitted (Dixie Electric Power Association)

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September 1, 2010

Dixie Electric learned from Hurricane Katrina

New substation coming online soon

By David Owens, newseditor@laurelleadercall.com Laurel Leader-Call

LAUREL — Dixie Electric Power Association is expected to bring a substation online in the coming weeks, which will service its customers from Petal into Jones County.

Randy Smith, engineering manager of Dixie Electric, said the substation will benefit the utility by sharing the power load with three other substations.

“We have three substations in that area — one on Macedonia Road which feeds into Jones County, one at the Moselle exit and one that feeds Highway 11 to the Ellisville Industrial Park,” he said. “If those substations are beginning to get loaded, we can help take the load off in that general area.”

Smith said the substation and several others being built recently will also be useful should another severe storm such as Hurricane Katrina impact the Jones County area.

From his office last week, Smith recalled the $44 million rebuilding efforts Dixie Electric Power Association (DEPA) undertook after Katrina knocked off power throughout the area.

“When we went home that night, we expected outages for most of the week,” he said. “Nobody figured on the magnitude that we were dealing with.”

Smith said the early days following the storm were “overwhelming” as electricity was out everywhere south of Interstate 20.

“Every one of our substations was out,” he said. “It was the worst thing anybody could remember. Even if no lines were damaged, we still would have been off (due to not receiving any generation from the South Mississippi Electric Power Association).”

Smith said more than 1,500 workers from 17 different states spent countless hours over three weeks time to get power restored.

“Once we figured out the magnitude, I never thought we’d be back on in three weeks time,” he said. “About every crew that came in, they said the people here were the nicest they had seen anywhere. We literally had to turn down assistance because there were so much response from the community.”

Smith noted that in Petal, families even took volunteers in and sheltered them at their homes.

“Finding somewhere for everyone to stay and get food were big issues,” he said. “We had about 900 to 1,000 volunteers at any one time.”

Smith said he was also proud that there were no major injuries or casualties during rebuilding efforts.

“Safety is always a concern if you’re working on a system and don’t know the area,” he said. “We have maps of all of our substations which keep our people coordinated.”

Among the equipment replaced included 4,000 utility poles, 2,000 transformers and a large number of crossarms.

Smith said it took about eight months to get everything back to normal. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reimbursed $42 million of the $44 million DEPA spent following the storm.

Smith said the utility has also spent a considerable amount of time since Hurricane Katrina to work on their emergency response plan.

“Prior to the storm, we had a plan which helped some, but our view of emergency response changed due to the magnitude of everything that happened,” he said. “We had to throw out (the plan) and start over.”

Smith said that plan includes all of the contact information of people who can work to rebuild the system.

“So, if anything like that happens again, we can be better prepared,” he said. “After our initial assessment, our response to it will be a lot better.”

Other programs DEPA has undertaken to prevent widespread outages again are a right-of-way around transformers and inspection pole inspection.

“About a tenth of our system is inspected each year and we have a less than 1 percent reject rate,” Smith said. “In the 1970s, our reject rate was about 10 percent. That impacts a lot too.”

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