To: Mayor’s Name, Emergency Manager’s Name and Solace City Council.
From: Student’s Full Name
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"Emergency Management and Energy Distribution".
Subject: Emergency management and energy distribution
1. Overview
This memorandum is to inform you of a number of issues regarding prioritizing recipients for electric power provision and restoration. It will describe the factors that Elco Power takes into account when making decisions in this area. The steps that can be taken by the community to prevent threats or crises, prepare for threats or crises and deal with any crisis that occurs will also be outlined.
2. Glossary
Brownout: Lights dimming due to slightly exceeded capacity within a plant.
Blackout: Complete loss of power.
Outage: Loss of electrical power.
3. Provision of Power
Elco Power generates electricity via a fossil-fuel power stations. The city is dependent upon the electricity that Elco creates in order to fulfill a large proportion of its energy needs. Without Elco’s contribution, electricity would be relatively scarce, which is why there is a need for ensuring that vital bodies are provided with energy in emergency situations.
4. Threats to Power
Threats to Elco Power’s ability to get electricity to all of the residents and businesses in the city that require it include natural disasters (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2003), rapid population growth causing demand to far exceed capacity (University of Pittsburgh) and extreme cold or hot weather affecting the productivity of the power stations (Combs). Natural disasters can cause widespread power shortages and can occur relatively unexpectedly. If one of these events was to occur, it might leave sections of the city without electricity.
Rapid population growth could lead to a brownout (University of Pittsburgh). This would mildly inconvenience the people of Solace. However if it became more severe, it could lead to a blackout, involving electricity cutting off for several hours each day. This would be a major inconvenience, especially in the case of businesses or government bodies that use refrigerators or cooling devices, as these pieces of equipment would sporadically turn off (University of Pittsburgh).
Extreme hot or cold weather would mean that less energy would be produced, which might leave some residents, businesses or bodies short. It could either lead to brownouts or blackouts depending upon the severity of the problem. The level of inconvenience caused to the city would depend upon what extent this occurred to.
Although there is nothing that Elco Power can do to prevent natural disasters from occurring, it has prepared for this eventuality by creating an agreement with other companies that states that they will send extra staff in to help fix damaged plants and energy structures in the event that one of these disasters takes place (American Electric Power, 1999). The crisis resulting from this threat can be withstood by taking every effort to get all relevant structures up and running as soon as possible so as to minimize the disruption that is caused. This will mitigate its negative effects and help to manage the consequences. There is nothing that the public can do to stop natural disasters from taking place but they can prepare for them by ensuring that they have a torch and batteries in their houses, an ample supply of canned goods available, lighters handy and a portable heater in an accessible location (American Electric Power). They can help to mitigate the effects of the resulting energy crisis and manage the consequences by dispatching trained personnel associated with local government bodies to help repair damaged power structures (U.S. Department of Homeland Security).
Problems stemming from rapid population growth and extreme hot and cold weather can be guarded against by Elco Power by having a reserve capacity that is twenty percent above the normal expected requirements in place (University of Pittsburgh). The company can prepare for the possibility of brownouts and blackouts being caused by these issues by providing regular updates on any issues that may lead to these events occurring and gathering information about potential outages. This way, the effects of the crisis can be minimized (American Electric Power). The consequences can be managed by seeking to rectify the situation and create more energy as soon as possible.
The community can do little to prevent these issues from occurring but can prepare for them by gathering together the same equipment that they should have present in case of blackouts caused by natural disasters. This will help them to withstand the crisis and will mitigate its effects. They can manage the consequences by reporting the power outage, turning off electrical appliances in order to guard against circuit overload when the power comes back on and applying the appropriate level of care when using matches in place of electric heating or lighting (American Electric Power).
5. Priority List
Emergency response agencies, hospitals, public shelters and other public utilities will be given priority with regards to power provision during outages (American Electric Power). This is due to the fact that they provide essential services. Residents will be given priority over businesses with regards to power restoration (American Electric Power). This is because a blackout will affect their personal lives, whereas businesses lacking power will only affect people’s work lives and some services that are delivered to the population. Large population centers will have their power restored first, for example those within the centre of the city as opposed to the outskirts (American Electric Power). This is because more people live in these areas. The city should wholly adopt Elco Power’s priority list, as it ensures that essential services are still able to operate during crises, looks out for the interests of families and individuals as opposed to businesses and seeks to provide power to areas in which doing so will do the greatest amount of good.
Student’s Full Name,
Solace Emergency Management Planning Division
- American Electric Power (1999, September 15). AEP Supplies Crews to Assist Utilities in Efforts to Recover from Hurricane Floyd. Retrieved July 29, 2013, from http://www.aep.com
- American Electric Power. Emergency Outage Kit. https://www.aepohio.com/
- Brown, M., Gagliano, T. & Rewey, C. (2003, April). Energy Security. Retrieved 29 July, 2013, from http://www.oe.netl.doe.gov
- Combs. Electricity. Retrieved from http://www.window.state.tx.us/
- University of Pittsburgh. Do We Need More Power Plants? Retrieved from http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Hurricane Sandy: Timeline. Retrieved from http://www.fema.gov/
