Neal Augenstein, wtop.com
GLEN BURNIE, Md. – Hundreds of power company employees from around the country are fueling-up on pancakes, eggs, bacon, pastries, juice and coffee at the Baltimore Gas and Electric staging area near BWI-Thurgood Marshall Airport.
“We’ve been preparing for this for several days. We’ve hunkered down. We’ve got the folks in from out of state,” says John Murach, logistics site manager for BGE.
“We’re gonna sit tight, weather the storm today and tonight. Hopefully it will clear early so we can start to restore service tomorrow for wherever we need it,” says Murach.
In the meantime, people who lose power may have to do without.
“As the storm comes in and builds up, the number of outages may start to build. It really is going to be a balance with what we can do and if it’s safe to work in those conditions,” says Murach.
Once Sandy blows through, BGE crews will gather volunteer crews from the staging area.
“They know the neighborhoods, they know our operations, they know our switching. So we need that local expertise to take groups of these folks out to work our system,” Murach said.
Murach says there’s a long history of utilities assisting others during weather emergencies.
“There is a strong bond where we do reach out to help each other when times are bad.”
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