Challenges of restoring power after the recent South Lake Tahoe storm

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - As over 3,000 Liberty Utilities customers in South Lake Tahoe and Meyers experience another day without power, there will be light at the end of the tunnel for many Tuesday at 6 p.m.

That is when another large section of customers should be back online according to Liberty Sr. Director of Operations Lindsay Maruncic.

"We are working on clearing a major outage today," said Maruncic Tuesday afternoon.

The massive power outage came with the high winds and wet, heavy snow to the Sierra Nevada, causing many challenges to the electrical grid of the Lake Tahoe Basin.

One of those challenges comes with mountain living and remote access to power lines. The crews working to restore power are using snowmobiles, helicopters, and snowshoes to find, then repair what is causing the outage.

"Access is a real issue, along with unplowed roads," explained Maruncic.

There are nine crews totaling 70 people and another 30 support staff working 24-hour shifts to get residents and businesses back online. There were 170 incidents at the height of the storm.

The second challenge crews have been facing are the trees falling into homes and into the power lines and poles. Maruncic said crews will spend hours getting a section ready to reenergize and another tree will fall.

"They've been continuing to find problems on lines," said Maruncic.

Besides the Liberty employees, there are also six tree crews working on problems as well as a helicopter crew. The tree crews need to fix the tree problems before electrical teams can go in and fix them. The helicopter is the quickest way to spot problems. Then crews can get in and address those problems, most of the time going through five feet of snow.

There are 720 miles of power lines through the south shore. When customers are without power in such a large area, crews work on substation issues first, then address emergency services, then neighborhoods and businesses with single outages affected just one home addressed last.

Liberty's focus now is on restoring of power, but after they get everyone back online they will evaluate and consider anything that could be addressed for the future.

There are planned Customer Resource Centers for when a power company must do a Public Safety Power Shutoff to reduce the risk of wildfire. Those centers are organized and staffed, but Maruncic said there are no such centers during winter and outages. She said they have not been done historically but they could look into the possibility in the future and even coordinate with city and county governments.

Maruncic said it's important that all customers have accurate information on their accounts, especially cell phone numbers. That way they can keep customers updated when possible.

Those with medical needs requiring electricity need to be signed up on the Liberty website for medical baseline customers. They called every single customer on the south shore that is a baseline customer to ensure their safety.

"They have all been supportive and understanding," said Maruncic.

When asked why the map isn't always reflecting all customers that have no power or have been restored, Maruncic said there have been so many calls that the process is not a quick one. She said it is still very important to report outages so those homes can be recorded as being out. Outages can be reported on the Liberty website.

"Customers have been understanding," said Maruncic. "We're working the best we can."