We Must Learn From This Disaster
By the time this editorial appears in print, perhaps the power will be on and the heroes who restored it will be at home, enjoying a well-deserved rest with their loved ones.
There is much to honor and celebrate about the way our community has rallied to the crisis of its most damaging ice storm in memory. At the top of the list are the hard-hatted laborers who worked day and night clearing debris, splicing power lines and replacing transformers under bone-chilling, life-threatening conditions.
Yet as the struggle dragged on, in the back of many minds a question grew - and it wasn’t just a result of justifiable grouchiness. Even though we all realize that very unusual weather was the primary cause of our misery, it is natural to ask, and important to ask, whether matters within human control made the crisis worse. If the answer is yes the community can learn, change, improve.
The ability to prevent and minimize a disaster like this rests on three sets of shoulders: electrical utilities, local government and individual property owners.
As far as property owners are concerned, it’s a safe bet none of us will look at our tree maintenance responsibilities as mildly as we may have in the past. No suburban tree lives forever. Big branches die and rot. In the future, property owners may be quicker to call professionals when they suspect buildings or wires are in jeopardy from a towering, sagging tree.
In the city of Spokane, a dedicated band of arborists has warned for years that street trees, planted shortly after the city’s founding, are in trouble, even dying. Now City Hall has reason to consider the adequacy of its response to these warnings.
Last, and most important, comes the responsibility of the area’s main electricity supplier, the Washington Water Power Co.
During the past several years WWP has engaged in cost-cutting and downsizing. Its goal - one it achieved - was to keep rates very low and to compete aggressively as a supplier of long-term electricity contracts for big industrial customers like Kaiser Aluminum.
So the question is whether this led to any short-changing of service reliability for residential and small-business customers. Are improvements needed in WWP’s tree-trimming program, its spareparts inventory, its disaster planning, its staffing levels for line crews, its contingency arrangements with crews at other regional utilities?
No one outside WWP knows the answer to those questions. As a regulated monopoly, the utility has a duty to supply its frustrated customers with answers. The Washington state Utilities and Transportation Commission should provide the opportunity for answers, by convening a public meeting once the Inland Northwest gets back on its feet. WWP says it would welcome such a meeting.
Good.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board