‘The Impact From This Storm Cannot Be Overstated’: Industry-Government Partnerships Power Historic Fern Response
“Before the winter storm began, through the mutual assistance program run through the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council, we had 65,000 utility workers ready to go, not just to make repairs in their own service territories, but across the entire affected area,” said Deputy Secretary of Energy James Danly.
Now two weeks on from a historic winter weather event that blanketed more than 200 million Americans in ice, snow, and frigid temperatures, industry and government leaders have been outspoken about the importance of close and regular communication ahead of and during Winter Storm Fern.
“Before the winter storm began, through the mutual assistance program run through the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC), we had 65,000 utility workers ready to go, not just to make repairs in their own service territories, but across the entire affected area,” Deputy Secretary of Energy James Danly during a recent press briefing.
Deputy Secretary Danly noted that “we had crews moving from state to state offering assistance,” which is why workers were able to respond so quickly to “a peak of just about 1 million outages.”
“The bulk power system held up, and we should be proud of that. We all should be proud of that effort,” Acting Under Secretary of Energy Alex Fitzsimmons, director of the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, said during a keynote address at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) Winter Policy Summit.
Under Secretary Fitzsimmons stressed the “strong partnerships” the federal government maintains through the ESCC that helped facilitate response to a storm that impacted more than 200 million Americans.
““The effort and the coordination among federal, state, local officials, our members, working across the industry, was amazing,” EEI President and CEO Drew Maloney said during a NARUC panel discussion.
Tens of thousands of workers from at least 44 states were active throughout the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic in recent weeks, working through snow and ice to perform damage assessments and begin restoration work when it was safe to do so.
“The impact from this storm cannot be overstated, and the industry’s response in the wake of Fern was extraordinary,” EEI Senior Vice President for Energy Security and Industry Operations Scott Aaronson said during a recent United States Energy Association briefing. “There is a culture of mutual assistance in this industry.”
Aaronson noted that the energy industry was working “in lockstep, from the earliest stages of the storm,” with the federal government and with state and local partners to ensure an efficient restoration process. He stressed that cross-industry partnerships are vital to restoring power to customers.
Aaronson also underscored how EEI member companies’ investments in grid resilience and smart grid technologies—in part to meet growing energy demand from AI, data centers, and the onshoring of manufacturing—enabled a faster restoration process.
“This forward planning has allowed us to better meet growing demand, and also to lessen the impact of and quickly respond to extreme weather events,” he said. “Resilience investments matter.”
Tens of thousands of mutual assistance workers responded to Winter Storm Fern, which blanketed much of the Southern and Eastern United States in dangerous weather conditions.