1. Tell us about yourself and how your career path led you to Hagerty.
Jonathan Davis: I joined Hagerty after a career focused on national security, starting in the private sector before moving to local and then national government. Due to family reasons, I unexpectedly moved from the United Kingdom (UK) to the United States (US), providing an opportunity to reorient my career towards climate resilience and infrastructure. I have enjoyed the pivot and learned a lot along the way!
Fallon McKain: I started my career as a transmission line engineer and had the opportunity to participate in a number of storm responses. I saw firsthand the importance of having a robust incident command structure and the effort required to execute a large-scale disaster response. I decided I wanted to apply my knowledge of the industry to an emergency management role and found that Hagerty already had a robust program in the field that I was excited to contribute to.
2. What do you find interesting about working with your clients in today’s infrastructure landscape?
Jonathan Davis: This is a unique moment for the energy sector. Customer demand for affordable and reliable power is growing significantly, as well as the expectation of cleaner energy sources. Utilities are trying to meet this demand while managing a higher frequency of extreme weather events, evolving cyber and physical risks, and meeting public, investor, and regulatory expectations. Supporting our clients, which include public utilities, investor-owned utilities, state energy and emergency management offices, provides the opportunity to solve problems at the confluence of energy resilience and climate adaptation.
Fallon McKain: I have had the opportunity to work with utilities of all sizes and it is fascinating to observe that the issues facing these critical industries, no matter the size, are very similar. Energy companies are grappling with aging infrastructure and have correctly assessed the risk this poses and are more engaged in aggressive hardening programs. While this is a major measure in mitigation, having a utility that is prepared for a disaster encompasses so much more than the physical health of the system. That is where we can fill that gap.
3. What are the biggest emergency management challenges facing energy and other critical infrastructures?
Jonathan Davis: We are seeing more compounding impacts, by which I mean events that may appear benign are interacting with other climate trends, resulting in unexpected and severe impacts.
We can take Hurricane Beryl as an example. Beryl was a Category (Cat) 1 storm, with wind speeds peaking at over 75 miles per hour (mph) in the Houston, Texas area. By historic standards for the region, this might be considered a relatively mild storm. However, over two million people were without power because of Beryl — exceeding Houston’s outages for Hurricane’s Rita, Ike, and Harvey. Why? In part tree stress. Prior to Beryl, Houston’s trees underwent years of stress from drought which damaged root systems that may have otherwise withstood 75 mph winds. As a result, when Beryl swept through the region many of these trees simply fell onto electric infrastructure.
Impacts and outcomes vary across the country. Nonetheless, utilities face the challenge of understanding new and compounding weather events and climate risks, as well as building infrastructure and emergency management shops that can manage their impact.
Fallon McKain: With compounding incidents, we see that the emergency response protocols of the past are no longer sufficient. This problem is multifaceted, but one important aspect is how incidents have historically been approached. Traditional emergency management doctrine classifies events as “Notice Events” (e.g., a hurricane) or “No Notice Events” (e.g., a cyber-attack). However, increasingly we are seeing “Creep Events” in which a common incident, such as one day of extreme heat that would not normally trigger a corporate response, continues to escalate over multiple days. The emergency management implication here is that corporate response is not activated soon enough, resulting in reactive instead of proactive action among these utilities.
It is important for energy utilities to not only understand these trends, but to also consider their public messaging plans to communicate these evolving risks to their customers. It is incumbent upon them to clearly communicate the increasing need for personal preparedness that these events necessitate.
4. How can communities prepare for power disruptions?
Jonathan Davis: At the local level, utilities and government partners can take the opportunity on blue-sky days to better understand one another’s needs and priorities in the event of an emergency. For some, this may be a matter of understanding how utilities operate the local power system and how system operators and crews operationalize power restoration. Going a step further, understanding and aligning restoration priorities between utilities and emergency management shops is critical, and can help minimize arbitration and time wasted during an event.
Fallon McKain: Backup generation is often mentioned in after-action reports as something a utility must invest in after an incident that involves extended outages. While this can be an effective solution to maintain power to critical infrastructure, there are many misconceptions that should be understood. First, laws vary by state regarding whether critical facilities such as nursing facilities are required to have permanent on-sight generation for a specified time period. Communities should discuss the delineation of responsibility between privately owned sites and energy providers and set clear expectations. Second, the option of mobile backup generation is often viewed as a solution that can be owned by the utility and deployed to the greatest area of need, providing a level of flexibility. This is only partially true. Not all generators are created equal and different facilities require different size generators. In addition, connecting a generator to a facility requires specific connections that many buildings are not equipped to handle. While still a viable option, this diminishes the flexibility of mobile generation, and it is critical that communities understand the limitations of this solution, if it is a technology that is being relied upon. to understand the limitations of this solution if it is a technology that is being relied upon.
Jonathan Davis is Hagerty’s Energy Sector Lead and a Senior Managing Associate within the Preparedness Division, helping clients navigate and address complex topics in energy resilience, climate adaptation, and public policy. Prior to joining Hagerty, Jonathan worked for the United Kingdom (UK) Home Office – the UK’s lead government department for counterterrorism and policing, immigration, and crime.
Fallon McKain is a Senior Managing Associate within Hagerty’s Preparedness Division. With over eight years of experience in the power industry as a transmission line engineer, Fallon has led billion-dollar infrastructure projects as both a technical expert and a team leader. Prior to Hagerty, she spent five years at Florida Power and Light (FPL) designing and managing transmission projects, both large and small. Fallon also supported storm restoration efforts during Hurricane Irma and Michael.