Politics & Government
City: Strategic Plan Aspects Limited Derecho Damage
In the latest City of Manassas Utility Connection newsletter, the city lauds its strategic plan for keeping electricity on during the derecho.
While thousands of residents were without electricity, air conditioning and in some cases, running water for up to a week during the aftermath derecho in July, City of Manassas residents were without power for one day.
In the most recent Utility Connection Newsletter for August, Tarek Aly, P.E., Deputy Director of Electric for the City of Manassas highlighted what portions of the strategic plan helped keep residents with power.
The city has "a tree trimming program that maintains overhead lines on a three-year cycle." The next third of the city scheduled for tree trimming (November 2012 to April 2013) is the bulk of the Weems Community.
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"An outage management plan that identifies the City’s resources in an emergency and is practiced periodically," reads the newsletter. "The electric system has been designed so that all customers can be served with electricity when any one of the four substations is out of service due to weather related emergencies or scheduled maintenance."
The city also has "an undergrounding program that requires developers to underground new lines."
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The City of Manassas "invests between $300,000 and $500,000 annually to convert overhead lines to underground," said the newsletter.
"At present, the 13.2 kV electric distribution system is approximately 8 percent underground."
And finally, the newsletter said, "highly qualified, committed lineman technicians are hired by the City to maintain, restore and construct the electric system in Manassas."
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