My mothers neighbor has worked as a field person (now a supervisor) for more than 20 years. He told her this pm that PGE will have only 15 folks on duty for New Year's Eve. They can call who ever they want during daylight hours only.

They have nobody on call and this guy is seriously peeved because he knows they'll all be partying and if anything happens it will be nearly impossible to get guys out.

Even if it's not y2k or terrorism imagine the panic if power goes out here and there (drunks, trees, squirells etc) given the expectations- not real swift when you built your rep on "we're ready- trust us"

The party line is safety for the personnel (wonder what the staffing was last year) the field guy seems to believe it's more an "economy" measure.

Apparently they have zero concerns re: y2k some about terrorism but given public concern this seems unwise at best.

Again the source is not a repair crewman but an experienced field supervisor- again 15 PGE people on duty that night for entire service region.

Portland, Oregon area NOT Northern CA

-- EC (JHnck1776@aol.com), December 28, 1999

Answers

How big is this service region?

-- Bill Byars (billbyars@softwaresmith.com), December 28, 1999.

http://www.vapower.com/news/y2k/index.html

Rollover Activities and Plans

On New Years Eve, Virginia Power will have about 1,300 employees on duty at 90 company locations. Double the normal number of Customer Service Center representatives will be on duty to respond to customers inquiries about our readiness.

The company will facilitate public awareness by coordinating coverage of Virginia Powers status during the rollover with a number of major news agencies.

Throughout the rollover we will be reporting our status to several state and federal agencies and industry associations. Agencies we will be reporting to include the State Corporation Commission (SCC), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), and the Southeastern Electric Reliability Council (SERC).

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 28, 1999.

*gulp*
one by one our hopes are dashed
oh dear. Thx, EC

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), December 28, 1999.

PGE serves a large metropolitan area (one of the 120 cities) according to local media sources there are supposedly 350 field guys but I'm not sure that they are on duty- this guy should know.

-- EC (jhnck1776@aol.com), December 30, 1999.

Keep in mind the grid regional blocks. I live in Colorado. A local NBC affiliate news station yesterday mentioned if the power went out locally at 1:00am, it would be due to utility failures on the west coast.

Lovely. Lets just hope it is fixable in hours, instead of days. Around here, it hasn't gotten over 30 degrees during the day for weeks.

A & L....here's hoping for the best, ey?

-- OR (orwelliator@biosys.net), December 30, 1999.