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After‑action review: county and Eversource describe lessons from blizzard and July heat wave
Summary
Eversource and county emergency management briefed commissioners on a recent heat wave and an earlier blizzard, pointing to most outages caused by single‑customer equipment failures, the role of automated reclosers, the need for improved shelter agreements and medical staffing, and plans to expand communications and debris‑management planning.
Eversource and Barnstable County officials told the commissioners on July 8 that the utility and local emergency managers stood up coordinated incident operations for both a winter blizzard and a July heat wave, and that the events revealed specific areas for improvement.
Ronique Goldstein, manager of community relations at Eversource, described the company’s preparations: "We started calls on Wednesday" of the heat wave, she said, standing up incident command and coordinating with ISO New England and demand‑response programs to reduce peak load. Eversource reported entering an ERP Level 5 that anticipated under 14,000 affected customers and restorations generally within 24–36 hours. Goldstein said much of the local interruption pattern during the heat wave involved single‑customer outages and multiple ailing pole‑top transformers rather than large circuit failures.
Addressing commissioner questions about flickering and momentary outages, Eversource explained that automated reclosers and switching are designed to self‑isolate transient faults. "That flickering is actually the system working," Goldstein said, adding that the company uses automated switching to ‘‘self‑regulate’’ the network and will dispatch crews when repeated operations indicate a persistent problem.
County emergency manager Andrew Platt summarized the post‑storm regional review of the winter blizzard (internally called an after‑action review). The county activated the multi‑agency coordination center (MAC), opened shelters (including Nauset Regional High School and Dennis‑Yarmouth High School), used Cape Cod RTA to move shelter populations, and supported cooling centers during the heat event. Platt said the county’s review produced more than two dozen findings across focus areas including sheltering, communications, EOC/MAC operations, mobilization, IT, finance and organizational culture.
Platt highlighted mission‑critical gaps: facility readiness (he cited a generator heating failure at Nauset), unclear formal MOAs and responsibility lines between towns and the county for shelter operations, and a shortage of medical/home‑care personnel for shelter support. "Medical staffing was critically lacking," he said, noting AmeriCorps volunteers filled many gaps but were not trained for some medical tasks.
Both Eversource and county staff pointed to investments and policy work to reduce future risk: accelerated equipment inspections, smart‑meter and DERMS (distributed energy resource management system) integration, expanded public information channels (including AM radio), formalized MOAs for sheltering and medical support, and debris‑management exercises and planning tied to recovery operations.
The commissioners directed staff to continue building those relationships and spelled out interest in working with state and federal partners, Joint Base Cape Cod and Mass Maritime to augment capacity and recovery capabilities.
