Don't Let Communications Be Part of the Crisis

The past few years have not been easy for leaders in the utility industry who have responded to record numbers of extreme weather-related crises that have interrupted services to consumers and caused millions—if not billions—of dollars in damage to utility infrastructures.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the U.S. experienced 20 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in 2021, second only to 2020 in terms of the most disasters in a calendar year. To put the trend into an industry-specific context, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that energy utilities experienced twice the outage time during 2021 than they did five years earlier. This has affected electric and gas utilities alike.

“It has been no picnic for affected consumers either,” says Jeff Conklin, Vice President of Utilities Intelligence and Technology, Media, & Telecom Intelligence at J.D. Power. “The more fortunate consumers faced the consequences of merely dealing with service interruptions. Many others have been forced to abandon their homes and seek refuge—often in the coldest days of winter or the hottest segments of summer—until some sense of normalcy could be reinstated in their communities.”

All of this, according to J.D. Power, is elevating the importance of crisis communications as a key factor defining the relationship between energy utilities and their communities of interest.

Read the full article here, including in-depth interviews with a utility that successfully navigated a crisis and an association that plans and practices for service interruptions. 

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