Catastrophic weather events are on the rise. Colorado State University has forecast 13 named storms in 2023—six of them hurricanes, with two expected to be Category 3 or higher. As storm frequency and severity increase, so does the pressure on utilities. Grey sky work begins with damage assessment—diagnosing the problem quickly, safely and effectively, so that restoration work can start immediately. In this session, you’ll hear from a field mobility lead at a large multi-territory IOU, as he discusses how his crews effectively leveraged a damage assessment field mobility solution to drive situational awareness and improved restoration times for affected communities in a recent storm. 

 Key Takeaways:  

• Understand the value of situational awareness, where crews have insight into the location of other field crews and where outages exist 
• Understand how to improve response times with live transfer of information from the field, so that restoration leaders can be more accurate with mutual assistance requests and material needs
• Improve documentation for cost recovery with records that are time-stamped, geo-located and include pictures so that regulators will have confidence in record keeping accuracy.