Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 12, 1993 TAG: 9306120238
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CELESTE KATZ STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
More than 30,000 people in the Roanoke area lost electricity after the June 4 storm, and 2,000 lost telephone service. Approximately 325 reports of cable problems were received.
Most complaints have been dealt with. But not all.
Sherry Gee, who lives on Sun Valley Lane in Southeast Roanoke County, had to put up with erratic cable service until Thursday, and that presented a different dilemma - what to do with the kids.
"What do you do with your kids after 5 when there's no TV?" she asked.
"During the storm, I didn't get aggravated" about losing electricity or cable service, she said Thursday evening.
"I did get annoyed Wednesday when the cable went off. There was no reason for it. There was no storm then."
A neighbor agreed, adding that private work crews hired by the utilities were not on top of the situation.
"They ought to send someone who knows what they're doing." While cable service flickered on and off during the week, she dealt with the problem of "hyperactive kids who had nothing to do."
In light of the overall damage, these concerns seem less pressing. Crews from the power, telephone and cable companies worked 16- to 24-hour shifts to repair storm damage estimated at several million dollars in utilities alone.
Well-documented plans for disaster relief played a key role in the restoration effort, which has helped restore service to nearly everyone in the Roanoke area.
Cox Cable Roanoke restored service to nearly all 325 households reporting either poor or inactive service.
General Manager Gretchen Shine said workers still were trying to reach outlying areas as late as Thursday. "There were still power lines down there, and we weren't able to get in," she explained.
Shine estimates total cable damage at between $40,000 and $50,000 and said that the usual crew of 12 to 15 workers has required extra help to clean up the mess.
In an emergency, according to Shine, Cox puts all employees on call and relies on its corporate Disaster Recovery Plan. However, she said, much of the document deals with maintaining service in the event of computer failure, not natural disasters.
"When there's an act of God like this, it's hard to anticipate," she said.
For most, electricity and cable were restored within three days of the storm. At peak, nearly 300 Apco workers were on the job.
Victoria Ratcliff, a spokeswoman for Apco's Roanoke division, Friday placed storm damage estimates at $1 million to $1.5 million. She said Apco had restored electricity to all homes in their division reporting a disturbance by Tuesday evening. The last "isolated cases" to be restored mainly were scattered throughout the area.
Ratcliff attributed a "smooth" restoration process to Apco's Emergency Service Restoration Plan, a comprehensive manual detailing nearly every aspect of coping with situations such as last week's storm or March's blizzard.
"They had planned for every contingency, and it rolled right along," she said. "I think the reason it worked so well here is that it is practiced and reviewed and gone over ahead of time."
However, Kenneth Self of Sun Valley Lane criticized both Cox and Apco for their handling of the storm situation, describing out-of-state work crews as "unmannerly" and service as erratic.
"Every time we have a storm out here, we lose power," he said. "The service at Apco is not very good at all, compared to what it once was." Self said that although residents were told cable crews would arrive Wednesday night, they did not appear until the next day.
Self, like his neighbors, maintained phone service throughout the storm. Overall, however, phone damage estimates continue to rise. C&P Telephone area manager Mike Rieley set damage for Lynchburg, Roanoke and the New River Valley areas at roughly $1 million but said business is almost back to normal. Telephone service has been restored to nearly 3,100 customers in the Roanoke and Lynchburg areas.
"It would be foolish to say that 100 percent of the lines that were damaged are back . . . but the number left from last Friday's storm is insignificant," he said.
Rieley cited C&P's Abnormal Conditions plan as having been highly effective in mobilizing an army of company and contracted workers - 250 at the peak of the damage. A good relationship with Apco, with which the telephone company shares many utility poles, allows the two to work together on repairs regardless of who owns the poles.
Workers are still finishing the damage repair - some meeting with customer praise, others with criticism.
"Some people think they're the only people affected by the damage," commented one Apco technician.
"One guy followed us around in his car from Saturday morning to Saturday evening, until we got to his house. Every time we moved, we had to back him out . . . but someone else tried to offer us $100 for our work."
by CNB