Cost of big storm weathers city for $1 million
By Timothy Schafer
The big blow that sliced through the city June 29 caused the city’s electrical to shell out some big dough in its wake.
The city’s electrical utility coffers will be drained by nearly $900,000 because of clean up and assorted electrical aftermath costs related to the wind and rainstorm, said Nelson Hydro general manager Alex Love.
He said although Nelson Hydro carries an expense line for storm and trouble calls, the storm repair was far bigger than that budget contemplated.
“(So) that line item will be over budget for the year and may cause the whole Nelson Hydro operating expense to be over budget for the year,” he said.
The damage repair may still be deemed an insurable event, Love noted, but if it is not the storm repair costs will cause a reduction in the year-end transfer to capital reserve.
“Because we have been maintaining a healthy capital reserve transfer and balance, the utility can weather an occasional financial hit such as this,” he said.
The storm damage costs included contractor costs, Nelson Hydro staff time, materials, removal of wind blown trees that did not come down in the storm (but were in danger of doing so), and after-outage repairs to lines that were damaged but did not completely fail (cracked poles).
The magnitude of the clean up and reconnect of power was beyond the finite resources of Nelson Hydro and, as a result, three additional power line contractor companies were employed: Arctic-Arrow (Cranbrook); Martech Electrical Systems (Castlegar); and Allteck (Langley).
“These companies assisted our own line department with making power lines safe and rebuilding damaged power lines,” said Love.
For tree clean up Nelson Hydro used three contractors, including ROG (Kelowna), Davey Tree (Nanaimo) and Asplundh (Aldergrove). The companies removed trees and limbs that had damaged power lines or were leaning and in danger of damaging power lines in the near future.
“The storm brought many trees down onto power lines and also compromised many trees so that they are now in danger of falling into lines given some time, wind or snow loading,” Love explained.
The individual line damage locations were of a nature that Nelson Hydro staff dealt with on a regular basis, Love said, and all of the problem types were well within the technical expertise held by Nelson Hydro staff.
However, what was challenging were the high number of damage sites and number of customers without power.
“This is why we brought in assistance from other companies so as to be able to restore power as quickly as possible by tackling several locations simultaneously,” Love said.
He noted the utility’s staff did a good job of damage assessment and restoring power to majority of customers a day after the storm, while contractors and Nelson Hydro crews alike worked together like one large team in doing so.
Other city departments like fire, police, warehousing and public works were a great assistance, Love said, particularly on the evening of the storm.
Mayor Deb Kozak said all emergency workers were out as the quick-hitting storm was subsiding, assessing damage and making places safe where lines were down and blocking off areas that were unsafe.
The storm also has created an interesting discussion on council, said Kozak, since it was the first time she used social media — Facebook — to quickly disseminate information.
“So we are having a discussion amongst council on how do we get information out to the public quickly since that is our role,” she said.
City manager Kevin Cormack said it was the largest single event damage cost incurred in over 25 years in the city, quite possibly ever.
The tree debris lying on the city’s tennis courts in Lakeside Park — and the resultant damage of trees falling on the court fences and surface — were removed Thursday by Public Works crews leaving the courts with no fence on the west side.
“It’s still an insurance claim matter,” Cormack said, noting service to the courts will be restored once the claim is settled.
The overall cost of the storm to the city will be revealed in the third quarter financial summary.
