Damage assessment assistance project preparation obviously needs to start prior to a damage causing event. Many times, in order to assess the situation and provide direction for repair or rebuilding power distribution infrastructure, there’s a need to know how it was built initially.

The Mi-Tech Storm Services team worked in 3 different Alliant Energy zones that took extreme damage from the storm. Our team’s role was to inspect the power grid and ensure all poles & transformers that were replaced and all existing lines met Alliant’s standards.

• We prefer to work with digital data and electronic collection tools allowing for mapping to be produced for initial assessment
• Stage geographically outside the affected area, but close as possible in order to be on site quickly following the event
• Our goals once on site and deployed for our assessment is to first identify immediate safety concerns along our assigned route.
• Our next goal is to identify infrastructure in need of repair and/or replacement in order to restore power. We do this by providing maps and bills of material for assigned circuits both to material coordinators as well as to construction crews and mapping departments.

We do not believe in overcomplicating any part we’re assigned in this process. Our approach is get on site, identify the damage, document the damage, document the location, document what’s needed to fix the damage, coordinate that information with all necessary parties and move on to the next section and do all this safely.