Lack of linemen slows job of restoring power

North Bend's Tanner Electric Cooperative has just 11 linemen, and that's counting Steve Walter, the utility's general manager.

When all 4,300 of Tanner's customers lost power in last Thursday's windstorm, Walter hoped to call in reinforcements. But he and other utility managers around the region quickly found that private electrical contractors were already spoken for, mostly by Puget Sound Energy (PSE).

As a result, power is coming back more slowly in places like Ames Lake, where Walter was working Wednesday.

If more help were available, he said, "there's no doubt that most of Ames Lake would have been on yesterday, and we're looking at another day or two, at least."

The most damaging windstorm to hit the Puget Sound region in a generation created a feeding frenzy for any and all available linemen in the Western U.S. Paid about $70 an hour and working 18-hour shifts, electrical-line repairmen are coming from as far away as Iowa, Wisconsin and Arizona.

Some utilities — including Seattle City Light — came up short in the scramble for help.

When the storm struck, about 30 of Seattle City Light's lineman positions were vacant, largely because of tight budgets, said Chris Heimgartner, the utility's director of transmission and supply. That's equivalent to a quarter of the utility's 28 four-man crews.

Already short-staffed, Heimgartner said he tried to call in contractors even before the storm hit. He got the same response as Walter.

"Their response was: 'We're not sure, we'll get back to you,' " Heimgartner said. "They were fully engaged, and bound up to other utilities when the storm hit."

City Light finally got its first outside help — 12 crews from Portland-based PacifiCorp — on Tuesday night. Just a few more crews, a few days earlier, would have made a big difference, Heimgartner said. "It would have allowed us to restore power quicker in some areas."

Thousands of City Light customers were still without power Wednesday, the utility said.

Snohomish County Public Utility District had 23 private crews working on Wednesday, and it also got help from other public-utility districts in Eastern Washington. But Mike Thorne, a PUD spokesman, said the utility also struggled when it competed with PSE for contractors.

"It was much harder to get help," he said.

PSE already had 180 crews — double its normal work force of contract linemen — deployed early last week in response to previous storm damage in Northwestern Washington. With weather reports predicting a whopper windstorm, PSE held the crews over until last Thursday.

When it hit overnight, the storm knocked out 1,250 of PSE's power poles, 159 substations and 85 transmission lines, a toll that far exceeds the damage from the 1993 Inaugural Day storm.

On Friday morning, PSE called for help from other utilities and contractors throughout the West. It now has about 400 crews working, typically with four to five linemen per crew, and is still hiring, said Sue McLain, PSE's senior vice president for operations.

"We may get to a point where we're turning away crews, but we're not there yet," she said.

PSE, an investor-owned company, in 2000 became one of the first utilities in the country to outsource its maintenance and repair work, to the Sumner-based firm Potelco. The contract allows PSE to draw on the resources of Potelco's parent company, the Houston-based Quanta Services.

That relationship has been criticized by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) because it resulted in layoffs. But McLain said it gave PSE a leg up during the storm.

"Because of that contract, and the alliance between Quanta and their various companies, they were able to start mobilizing more quickly," she said.

Craig Davis, Potelco's vice president for operations, said he warned his 1,000-person work force last week to get their Christmas shopping done early. Just after the storm hit, linemen worked 40 hours straight, and have been working shifts of 18 hours on, six hours off, since then.

"We would have bumped up our work force if there were more [linemen] available," he said. "The fact is, there is no one else. Anyone who can work in this trade, they're working now."

Just before the storm hit, contractors began calling IBEW's Local 77, headquartered in Seattle, and the union put out an "open call" for any union member in the U.S.

Linemen from Iowa and elsewhere responded, said Don Guillot, the union's business manager. He estimates that half of the crews now working are from out of the area.

He declined to talk about PSE's outsourcing, but said the utility was "very lucky" that Thursday's windstorm was the only major storm to hit the West Coast.

"If there would have been a storm here, and say in San Francisco, the problem you have in hiring a transient work force is that they would go to where the most work is," Guillot said. "Outsourcing wasn't something we wanted; it was something we had to do."

Linemen do get paid well during the storm, but they also are leaving behind their own families, many of whom don't have power, Guillot said.

"These guys are trying to build things in a week that normally take a month to build," he said. "They're working 24-7, and a lot of them won't be home for Christmas."

Heimgartner, from City Light, acknowledged that outsourcing was controversial, but he said the storm shows the cost of not following PSE's lead.

"When PSE says, 'We need more workers,' the contractors say, 'Your business is my business,' " he said. "I'm frustrated that City Light's business model has not migrated toward private business model."

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com