Three Questions Every Utility Should Ask Before the Next Storm

After fifteen years of recovery operations and utility resilience work, the same three questions keep separating organizations that hold together from the ones that don't.

First: who actually makes the call when the situation falls between two procedures? If the answer is 'we'd escalate,' you haven't tested it. Real incidents don't wait for an org chart.

Second: when was the last time your mutual-aid agreements were exercised under realistic conditions? Paper agreements are not capacity. Capacity is people who've worked together before the bad day.

Third: what would your operations center look like with thirty percent of your senior staff unavailable? That's not a worst case - that's a Tuesday during a multi-week event. If the answer is 'we'd manage,' dig deeper.