Hurricane season began June 1st and runs through November 30th. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) forecasters are calling for a “near-normal” year, with 9 to 15 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher). Of those, four to eight could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), with two to four of those major hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5; with winds of 111 mph or higher).

We know that no matter what blows our way, preparing for all emergencies and weather events is a year-round activity for GUC. Employees are consistently doing what they can to ensure our systems are in the best condition possible and that we have an adequate supply of materials to handle most situations, at any given time.

Electric

GUC’s outage management system, called Responder, is a valuable asset during service interruptions. Responder simultaneously links to our Emergency Hotline, Geographic Information System (GIS), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), and Customer Care & Billing (CC&B). By tapping into multiple tools at once, Responder can automatically group together related customer calls, which makes managing the outages much easier.

One of the key benefits for customers is better communication. Through an outage map on our website, customers can see where we have outages and even report their outages online with just a few simple steps. Customers can also get this information through our Emergency Hotline, including a call-back option for updates.

Another responsibility of the Electric Department is line clearing, an ongoing program to help minimize service interruptions. One thing that makes Pitt County a beautiful place to live is our trees. While they are lovely, trees have the potential to cause serious problems for our electric distribution system. Preventing those problems is why GUC has a year-round line clearing program that covers our entire distribution system. Line Clearing Crews work daily on trimming branches and trees that threaten overhead power lines. Their work is crucial because we cannot prevent strong winds and heavy rains from damaging our trees. What we can do is work hard to prevent as many trees as possible from causing widespread outages.

Water Resources

Water Resources crews monitor and maintain our distribution system so we can quickly make repairs should the need arise. The systems at the Water Treatment Plant are continuously monitored, and back-up systems are in place so that we’re able to serve our customers no matter what weather situations arise. The Wastewater Treatment Plant also regularly monitors systems so they can function during any type of emergency.

Natural Gas

Similarly, the Gas Department inspects and maintains gas valves and has identified those critical for isolating sections of the system in the event of an emergency. GUC purchases natural gas for its customers. Should this supply be cut off due to an emergency or if transportation became an issue, our Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant has more than a week’s supply of gas in storage.

Stores & Garage

Our warehouse, Stores, keeps enough inventory on hand for crews to have the supplies they need to make emergency repairs. They plan ahead so that once it’s safe for workers to get out in the field to restore service, they have what is needed to get the job done. Our vehicles and equipment are kept in tip-top shape by the Garage as well.

Customer Communications

Communicating effectively with our customers is crucial during emergencies. Over the years, we’ve used experience from past weather events to enhance the way we communicate to our customers during emergencies.

To tackle the issue of busy phone lines, we have an Emergency Hotline 855-SOS-2GUC (1-855-767-2482) dedicated to helping us handle a large number of calls at one time. It’s available 24/7 and is a fast way customers can report an outage, gas leak, water leak, or any other utility emergency.

GUC Alert is another communication tool that allows us to send personalized messages to customers and employees about emergencies.

A relatively new tool for communications is GUC’s weather channel, GUCtv (cable channel 35). While we’ve had channel 35 for many years, we now have a partnership with WITN that allows us to provide not only weather information, but also videos and slides of GUC-specific information.

We also share information online through our website and social media outlets (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram). And with social media, customers have another avenue to communicate back to us.

2019 Storm Names:

Andrea
Barry
Chantal
Dorian
Erin
Fernand
Gabrielle
Humberto
Imelda
Jerry
Karen
Lorenzo
Melissa
Nestor
Olga
Pable
Rebekah
Sebastien
Tanya
Van
Wendy