Hurricane Response Focus of Unitil Training Exercise

With forecasters calling for an above-normal hurricane season that already got off to an early start with the remnants of Hurricane Beryl passing through New England last week, Unitil held an annual electric drill on Monday focused on a scenario involving a simulated hurricane striking the region and leaving tens of thousands of customers without power.

Each year, Hampton-based Unitil, a provider of electricity and natural gas to customers in New England, conducts an electric training exercise designed to test the effectiveness of the company's emergency response plan. The day-long drill provides an opportunity for Unitil to coordinate and implement its response actions before, during and after a simulated major electrical emergency.

The exercise, which also included municipal, public safety, and state officials, involved a simulated tropical system named Hurricane Francine, which passed through central Massachusetts and then moved into New Hampshire. The once-in-a-generation storm brought hurricane-force winds to the region, resulting in widespread tree damage, poles and wires down, road closures, flooding, storm surge, and issues with natural gas infrastructure. At its peak, the fierce hurricane caused outages that left approximately 30,000 Unitil customers without power amid searing temperatures that climbed into the 90s.

"These annual exercises are a critical part of our electrical emergency response planning and give us an opportunity to practice preparedness and how we manage resources to ensure that we're able to respond quickly and efficiently in the event of a real incident," said Unitil External Affairs Director Alec O'Meara. "Given the predictions for a very active hurricane season, and the fact we're overdue for direct impacts from a landfalling New England hurricane in our service territory, we felt it was a good time to create a realistic scenario involving a powerful system impacting the area and all that it would bring in its aftermath."

NOAA National Weather Service forecasters are predicting an 85% chance of an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. Based on its latest forecast, NOAA expects 17 to 25 total named storms - 8 to 13 of which are forecast to become hurricanes, including 4 to 7 major hurricanes. The active season is expected based on a number of factors, including near-record warm waters in the Atlantic and other influences that aid in the formation of tropical systems.