2016 Emergency Management Excellence Awards
Davies Consulting Acknowledges 10 Leading Utilities for Innovative Practices, Outstanding Performance
FOR RELEASE: December 30, 2016
CONTACT: Julie Clendenin, [email protected]
Chevy Chase, MD – Today, Davies Consulting announced the winners of its first-ever Emergency Management Excellence Awards, acknowledging 10 utilities in North America for their innovative practices and exceptional performance in emergency management. The awards acknowledge leading performers & innovators who are improving restoration performance, shortening response times, and enhancing collaboration among first responders, utilities, and customers. Brief descriptions of each award-winning practice can be found at www.daviescon.com.
Emergency Communications Excellence Award -- Recognizes exceptionally effective engagement with internal and external stakeholders through clear and strategic messaging, channels, tools, and tactics.
Winner: Florida Power & Light/NextEra Energy, Comprehensive, All-hazard Emergency Communication Core Plan
Runner Up: Eversource, Municipal Liaison Organization
Most Innovative Emergency Practice (Storm) -- Recognizes game-changing strategy, programs, tools, or practices that have pushed boundaries and improved performance in utility emergency response for storm-related incidents.
Winner: Florida Power & Light, Smart Grid applications to improve outage response
Runner Up: Avangrid, LiDAR imagery for post-storm damage assessment
Most Innovative Emergency Practice (All-Hazards) -- Recognizes game-changing strategy, programs, tools, or practices that have pushed boundaries and improved performance in utility emergency response for non-storm-related incidents.
Winner: San Diego Gas & Electric, Weather forecasting tools to enhance wildfire response
Runner Up: Ameren, ICS during extended civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri
Best Emergency Response -- Recognizes utility emergency response actions during a major event (between 2012-2015) that had exceptionally positive results for customers and the community.
Winner (Storm): Consolidated Edison, Superstorm Sandy, 2013
Winner (All-Hazards): Pacific Gas & Electric, Valley Fire, 2015
Runner Up (All-Hazards): Southern California Edison, Catalina Island, 2015
Hero Award -- Recognizes a team whose courageous action and alert problem solving enhanced life safety or situational awareness during emergency response operations.
Winner: Southern California Edison Fire Management Team
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The award selection process grew out of a year-long Davies Consulting benchmarking effort that included 16 investor-owned North American utilities. The benchmark was a detailed assessment of each utility’s performance in the following categories as they relate to emergency management:
Governance: visible leadership support, endorsement, and engagement
Workforce Mobilization & Care: ability to identify, engage, and account for the welfare of necessary and skilled personnel
Program Planning: including hazard/threat analysis in planning
Response Organization: a scalable, all-hazards incident and crisis management organization
Response Plans: documented policies & processes for all enterprise units and organization levels
Command & Information Systems: redundant, efficient, and effective communication
Training & Education: focused on the roles & responsibilities for enterprise-wide response
Exercise & Evaluation: measuring effectiveness of people, processes, plans, and tools/technology to identify improvement opportunities
Communications: integrated strategy for creating, approving, and disseminating messaging before, during, and after emergencies
Outreach & Coordination: ongoing integration with external agencies & organizations
The 2016 benchmark participants represent virtually every region of the U.S., plus one Canadian province. The companies are diverse in size, with the number of customers ranging from nearly 800,000 to 9.7 million. Most of the benchmarked utilities provide both electric and gas services.
Highlights of the final benchmark report will be released in February.
For more information about the awards, please contact Julie Clendenin, [email protected] .
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About Davies Consulting (www.daviescon.com)
Davies Consulting helps utilities balance risk, cost, and performance to enhance organizational effectiveness, offering best practice expertise, analytical support, and business process advice that ensures high levels of performance enterprise-wide.