Dominion Power Prepares for Hurricane Season

wants to be prepared for the summer hurricane season, so on Wednesday the company held a storm drill. 

“We come to work with our A-game,” said Deborah Johnson, Dominion’s senior manager of state, regional and local affairs.

Employees role played their responsibilities for a category three hurricane barreling down on the Virginia coast and extending up into Northern Virginia.  Staff gathered in a conference room at the Herndon office to work out the scenario as they would in a real storm. Dominion also brought out its mobile command center.

"During storms the company works to stay informed, and to relay that information to area media and customers," said Johnson.  The company works closely with county Emergency Operations Center offices to communicate through emergencies.

"When the power is out, it's important for customers to notify Dominion," said Phillip Sandino, Dominion’s director of customer solutions. "Dominion has no record of the outage if the customer hasn’t called," he said.

When it comes to restoring services, Dominion’s priorities start with the transmission line and infrastructure. Having a transmission line go down can impact up to 10,000 customers, according to Sandino.

The power company then works to restore substations, which impact 6,000 people, main circuits, impacting roughly 1,500 people, then residential lines, individual transformers and services.

When customers call Dominion, 1-866-DOM-HELP, they may speak to a customer call agent or the automated service. Customers can elect to receive a return call from Dominion about the status of the outage.

Sandino said after a storm the first thing they do is send out crews to survey damage. These first crews don’t do repairs, but report back to Dominion about how extensive the repairs will be so the company can send out the correct equipment, he said.

Lynn Chaffin Jr., director of new media and communications planning for Dominion, said the company tries to be as social media and mobile friendly as possible. "During storms people are usually able to check their phones, so it’s important to keep social media updated," he said.

For more storm tips and emergency preparedness information, and to learn more about how to stay in touch with Dominion during power outages, visit the Dominion Storm Center.