I’ll also never forget the day the trucks hooked us back up to the grid. I live in (M)assachusetts. The crew was from Washington state.
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Our electric crews always go to other states to help restore power, but we don’t do snow, that I have ever heard of. I have never known them to go North anyway in winter. Our crews usually respond to tornado and hurricane issues. Farmers here also send semi-truck loads of hay during droughts, even to those that full-on hate the South.
Regarding disaster response by electric utilities, the hurricanes and tornadoes are the worst. Ice storms also, but normal winter snow, at least where I grew up in northeast Ohio, wasn’t a problem. The ice though - it clings to the wires and to the tree branches, weighs them down, and eventually causes havoc.
Back in August, 93, we had a storm come off Lake Erie that had no tornadoes, but had straight line winds in excess of 80 mph. Tore the distribution system up. I mean just wiped out rows of power line poles. Didn’t damage the major transmission lines on the big steel towers though - those are built to withstand significantly more wind, and the trees are kept clear of those wires.
Mutual aid is practiced by most utilities - they ‘loan’ their crews to one another, though the host utility pays the cost, of course. If, for example, the Knoxville Utility Board sends 10 line crews to, say, Jacksonville, FL, to clean up after a hurricane, Jacksonville Energy Authority pays for their expenses including wages, lodging, meals, and travel. As would be expected.