Southern California Edison (SCE) destroyed downed utility poles immediately after a ferocious windstorm at the end of 2011, making it impossible to conclusively assess claims by critics that the company’s improper maintenance contributed to the devastation.

The California Public Utilities Commission expressed frustration at not having access to most of the 248 poles that blew down during a storm that cut power to 440,168 customers in the San Gabriel Valley on November 30 and December 1, 2011. Edison almost immediately hacked 75% of the poles into tiny pieces, “making it nearly impossible to determine which failed pole they belonged to,” according to the PUC report released Monday.

But even without the poles, the PUC Consumer Protection and Safety Division (CPSD) found plenty to criticize. At least 21 poles and 17 guy wires did not meet safety factor requirements, the utility failed to adequately investigate the outages and pole failures, it did a lousy job of preserving the evidence and its response time during the extended outage was poor.

Full power was not restored until December 8.

The poles that were downed could have fallen in winds that gusted at 80 miles per hour for a variety of reasons: something fell on them, they were poorly designed and constructed, they were made of inadequate materials, they were overloaded, they were weakened by cracks and cavities or guy wires failed. But without having access to the downed poles, the PUC could only make educated guesses.

The agency was guessing there were a lot of problems. “Based on the information available, CPSD staff believes that having access to the physical evidence that was disposed of by SCE, would have significantly increased the likelihood of finding more instances where SCE failed to comply” with safety rules.

Investigators found termite and fungal decay, woodpecker damage and dry rot in the pole segments they recovered. Vegetation that was too close to poles was blamed for a number of outages. Power conductors and line splices failed.

Edison received 195,000 calls during the storm and the week after. Because of the heavy call load, the utility stopped responding to individual communications about downed lines after the second day when it knew the location was already without power. However, it failed to notify customers of this policy, leaving them to wonder if they were just being ignored.

On the second day of the storm, customers grew so frustrated with the Edison call center’s 20-minute phone wait to speak with an SCE representative that 2,000 people an hour abandoned their calls. Those that got through didn’t always receive the best information. “Inaccurate power restoration time estimates were a major issue during the incident,” the report said.

Local governments told the PUC that communication with Edison was sketchy, at best. Although SCE maintained a dedicated line for “Essential” customers, the Arcadia Fire Department reported that it had problems getting through to the utility.

Edison’s local public affairs liaison in charge of communicating with the surrounding communities retired the day before the storm. There was no replacement.

But the PUC’s most critical remarks were about Edison’s failure to preserve the fallen polls. The PUC admits is was days after the initial storm before it formally asked Edison to preserve the polls, but the agency noted that Edison acknowledged early on that the poles may have fallen because of too much load or wood deterioration and therefore knew they would be important evidence in the post mortem.

The PUC specifically found SCE in violation of equipment maintenance and evidence preservation rules. 

–Ken Broder

To Learn More:

SoCal Edison Destroyed Downed Poles before Inspection (by Joe Piasecki, Los Angeles Times)

Edison Faulted for 2011 Windstorm Response (Associated Press)

Investigation of Southern California Edison Company’s Outages of November 30 and December 1, 2011 (California Public Utilities Commission’s Consumer Protection and Safety Division)