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CNN Saturday Morning News
Interview with Deborah Johnson of Dominion Virginia Power
Aired September 20, 2003 - 09:12 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THOMAS ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: You know, as we speak, emergency crews are working very hard to get the juice turned back on to more than 1 million customers still without power in Virginia.
Joining us now on the telephone is Deborah Johnson. She's a spokeswoman for Dominion Power -- Dominion Virginia Power, that is.
Deborah, great to have you with us. Thanks for joining us to talk about this. So at last check, though, I was hearing was about 1.5 million. So has that number changed? Is it just a million now?
DEBORAH JOHNSON, DOMINION VIRGINIA POWER (on phone): Well, we're at 1.2 million customers that we are still working to restore systemwide. And what we are -- we are making progress, though. We've had as many as 1.8 million customers affected. So we really are starting to see some progress, though we certainly are aware and are very sensitive to the customers that we still need to restore.
ROBERTS: Deborah, this has to be a huge strain on your staff.
JOHNSON: Well, we had emergency plans in place. And so we are definitely staffed, and, you know, had people trained to work on just these types of situations. And they're just doing a fantastic job.
You know, we have conference calls scheduled regularly with people that are managing the offices. And we have conference calls that we do with people who are working in the field. And our operations centers, our staff that we have that type of communication going on.
So we are staffed and trained to work with this type of event.
ROBERTS: And I guess right now you're really asking for everybody's patience, because there is no time limit or, I guess, an idea of time where you can say specifically when people are going to be back with their power.
JOHNSON: Yes, and I'm so glad that people are starting to understand that. I mean, we had said before, in our preparations, we wanted people to plan for multidays without power. And many people have done that, and we appreciate that. And we -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- as I said, we had 1.8 million customers. The largest storm that we've dealt with before this one was back in 1966 with Hurricane Fran, where we had 1.1 million customers. So even though we've restored about 600,000 customers, having 1.2 still remaining out, it's still the largest storm, even, you know, remaining. So there's still a lot of work out there.
But we have resources. We started out with plans of 7,000 people systemwide to be working on our system, employees and contractors as well. As we've gotten into the storm, we've made arrangements to bring an additional 1,000 resources into our service area. So we'll have at least 8,000 people working on this storm in various aspects.
ROBERTS: Well, Deborah Johnson, a spokesperson for Dominion Virginia Power, we appreciate your time this morning, and wish you and your colleagues luck as you work really hard to try and get the power back on in Virginia.
JOHNSON: Yes, we are.
ROBERTS: Thank you very much.
They're asking for patience there so everyone can really understand the difficulty ahead of them, long work hours ahead to get those 1.2.
COLLINS: Yes, still 1.2 million, that's right.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 20, 2003 - 09:12 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THOMAS ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: You know, as we speak, emergency crews are working very hard to get the juice turned back on to more than 1 million customers still without power in Virginia.
Joining us now on the telephone is Deborah Johnson. She's a spokeswoman for Dominion Power -- Dominion Virginia Power, that is.
Deborah, great to have you with us. Thanks for joining us to talk about this. So at last check, though, I was hearing was about 1.5 million. So has that number changed? Is it just a million now?
DEBORAH JOHNSON, DOMINION VIRGINIA POWER (on phone): Well, we're at 1.2 million customers that we are still working to restore systemwide. And what we are -- we are making progress, though. We've had as many as 1.8 million customers affected. So we really are starting to see some progress, though we certainly are aware and are very sensitive to the customers that we still need to restore.
ROBERTS: Deborah, this has to be a huge strain on your staff.
JOHNSON: Well, we had emergency plans in place. And so we are definitely staffed, and, you know, had people trained to work on just these types of situations. And they're just doing a fantastic job.
You know, we have conference calls scheduled regularly with people that are managing the offices. And we have conference calls that we do with people who are working in the field. And our operations centers, our staff that we have that type of communication going on.
So we are staffed and trained to work with this type of event.
ROBERTS: And I guess right now you're really asking for everybody's patience, because there is no time limit or, I guess, an idea of time where you can say specifically when people are going to be back with their power.
JOHNSON: Yes, and I'm so glad that people are starting to understand that. I mean, we had said before, in our preparations, we wanted people to plan for multidays without power. And many people have done that, and we appreciate that. And we -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- as I said, we had 1.8 million customers. The largest storm that we've dealt with before this one was back in 1966 with Hurricane Fran, where we had 1.1 million customers. So even though we've restored about 600,000 customers, having 1.2 still remaining out, it's still the largest storm, even, you know, remaining. So there's still a lot of work out there.
But we have resources. We started out with plans of 7,000 people systemwide to be working on our system, employees and contractors as well. As we've gotten into the storm, we've made arrangements to bring an additional 1,000 resources into our service area. So we'll have at least 8,000 people working on this storm in various aspects.
ROBERTS: Well, Deborah Johnson, a spokesperson for Dominion Virginia Power, we appreciate your time this morning, and wish you and your colleagues luck as you work really hard to try and get the power back on in Virginia.
JOHNSON: Yes, we are.
ROBERTS: Thank you very much.
They're asking for patience there so everyone can really understand the difficulty ahead of them, long work hours ahead to get those 1.2.
COLLINS: Yes, still 1.2 million, that's right.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
