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Utility companies learning from ice storm

By Ben Garbarek - bio | email | Twitter
Posted by Noah Stubbs - email

OWENSBORO, KY (WFIE) - Hundreds of residents in western Kentucky went nearly three weeks without power after the January ice storm.

Now utility companies are trying to figure out ways to make sure a future natural disaster doesn't hit customers so hard.

Kenergy says communication was the biggest problem after the ice storm knocked out phone lines for several days.

"We could have done a much better job communicating once we got our communications back up," Kenergy representative Sandy Novick said. "Now the first three, four days we had no communications."

The Public Service Commission came out with a list of 64 recommendations after the ice storm and the wind storm from hurricane Ike.

Some of those recommendations include burying some power lines, strengthening overhead lines and using satellite phones when regular phone lines break down.

Kenergy says it's either already implemented or is working to put into place all 64 recommendations.

Kenergy says the ice storm was worse than a hurricane for utility workers.

"Unlike a hurricane where all the houses are damaged, people have moved out, they've evacuated, the houses were fine," Novick said. "Everybody was here waiting for their power to be restored."

While the PSC recommends considering burying power lines, Kenergy says it might not be worth it.

"There's been study after study after study performed down the coast with all the hurricanes and the cost to do that simply doesn't make any sense to do it down there and up here it'd make even less sense because you have even less likelihood of natural disasters," Novick said.

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