Preparing for Storm Season: Essential Tasks

Implement Solutions

Enable or invest in automated communication systems, like Notifi® capable of quickly broadcasting outage notifications to a large number of customers.
Enable or invest in an outage map service, like Storm Center™, to provide customers with access to outage information when needed.

Set up multiple communication channels through a notification management solution like Notifi so customers can receive outage information through their preferred channel.
Develop a comprehensive outage communication plan, including roles, responsibilities, frequency of updates, and outage information.
Conduct trial runs of your outage communication tools by sending test broadcasts to ensure your team knows how to use the software.
Preload templates for various broadcast messages, such as promoting your outage map, informing customers about an incoming storm, and outage enrollment.
Ensure your web services, which host tools like outage maps, function correctly.
Understand all the error messages and notifications your outage solutions provide to familiarize yourself with the tools at your disposal.
Regularly update your outage map with information, including updates to your service territory, to reduce the risk of any errors during the storm period.
Ensure administrators and users of your outage communication tools know how to use the software and have access to them.

Formalize a process for sharing your Outage Management System (OMS) data with your service provider and ensure that this process is not changed before, during, and after a storm.
Pause any technology updates, software maintenance, code changes, and/or support requests to your outage communication solutions.

Encourage your customers to opt-in for outage alerts through their preferred communication channels to ensure they get timely updates on future outages.
Create surveys and polls to solicit feedback on your outage communication plan regularly.