From the Patriot’s Day storm of 2007, through the New Hampshire-declared state of emergency in 2008, to the mass devastation caused by Hurricane Irene in 2011, the state’s residents are no stranger to power outages.
When the power’s out, one of the first things New Hampshire residents want to know is when it’s going to be back on. To meet this demand, Unitil, a public electric and gas utility in New Hampshire developed an interactive map that uses customer-sourced data to track outages, which is available to customers online in real time. The map was released in May 2012, and is viewable on mobile devices so that it functions during storms.
The new feature is part of the company’s outage management system, says Alec O’Meara, head of Media Relations. It uses the same information the company’s customer service department uses to track and report outages. The whole system is managed by a senior-level emergency response director.
 Customers of Unitil, a public electric and gas utility in New Hampshire, may access an online interactive map that uses customer-sourced data to track outages. |
“We’ve seen as many as four 100-year events over the past three years,” says O’Meara.
“We make an effort as a company to learn from each of these events,” he explains. Their new service is a way to meet what they see as a consumer demand. O’Meara’s position was created in 2010 to get information out to news services and the public during extreme weather events.
“Right now our goal is to make sure we are trained and ready for those events. Our approach as a company is to prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” he says.
With permission from the:
New Hampshire Journalist’s Room
http://nh-journalists.stormsmart.org/
