Industry Highlights

Now that 2017 is waaaaay back in the rear-view mirror, and the 1Q of 2018 is well underway, I thought it would be fun to find out what industry experts consider to be some of the top electric [...]

As an emergency preparedness professional, it’s always something.  Hurricanes, earthquake activity, forest fires, terrorism, cybersecurity, derechos, microbursts, you name it.  And now we have [...]

The recent California forest fires illustrate the importance of proper dispatcher training.  On October 8, 2017, a handful of fires exploded onto the scene in Sonoma County.  Panicked residents [...]

The FEMA Urban Search and Rescue or USAR teams are made up of individuals that specialize in search and rescue, disaster recovery and emergency triage and medicine.  They are typically deployed [...]

A nasty storm in January 2018 caused massive mudslides in Montecito, CA, a community of about 9,000 residents within Santa Barbara County.  At least 20 residents were killed.  The totality of the [...]

I’ve written about many kinds of natural and manmade disasters for this blog, including system-hacking, terrorism, forest fires, earthquakes, and more. Now there’s a new and emerging [...]

Since there’s been so much talk about emergency cellphone alerts lately, this NY Times article is interesting.  In South Korea, notifications from local and regional governments are [...]

At first blush, the notion of outage planning seems counterintuitive.  This is because unplanned outages get all the press.  Case in point – most of what I write about involves unplanned outage [...]

Are underground power lines the solution for preventing forest fires?  According to Councilman Bob Whalen of Laguna Beach, CA, the answer is a definitive “yes.” Mr. Whalen’s sentiment is [...]

In this brave new world of cyber hacking, terrorism, and similar shenanigans, utilities face great challenges when it comes to protecting critical infrastructure.  And one of the newest methods [...]