Following the impact of Winter Storm Fern earlier this year, Tullahoma Utilities Authority (TUA) President Allen Potter held a presentation to the utility authority’s board of directors about how TUA is prepared for storms.

The presentation was held as a work session at the TUA board’s March 31 meeting, where Potter said he was asked to present TUA’s plan for storms following the fallout of NES (Nashville Electric Service) and its response to Winter Storm Fern in January.

“I was asked to present this, really being reactive to NES and the situation that they went through, and just to show the board that we are prepared,” Potter said at the start of the presentation.

He said due to being located in Nashville, he thought NES received more negative publicity and pushback, and made the board aware of a bill that was making the rounds in the General Assembly, HB 2592/ SB 2102, where it would require an electric utility that provides services to at least 3,500 retail electric customers in an outside locality to expand the electric utility’s board to include one additional voting member for the outside county, if the outside county chooses to appoint a person. Potter said if passed, it will impact 16 municipal power companies, where they will add board members to represent each county the utility serves. The bill was passed this past week and has made its way to Gov. Bill Lee’s desk.

Potter continued with the presentation and said that, to his knowledge, TUA’s had a storm emergency management plan since 2008. According to the presentation, the plan reflected how TUA operated during storm events and major system disruptions, emphasizing real-time decision-making, clear communication, and safe, strategic restoration of service. The objective of the plan was simple: restore service safely, efficiently, and in a way that benefits the greatest number of customers as quickly as possible.

Potter said that before any storm forecast, TUA is always in communication with local emergency management teams and updates employee contact and callout procedures. Also, part of the preparedness was employees receiving regular safety training, adhering to APPA safety standards, checking equipment readiness, managing material inventory, and establishing mutual aid agreements and regional partnerships.

“I could call Winchester or Shelbyville, and they’d have a crew here in no time,” Potter said. “We respond the same way when they need help.”

Potter then moved to what the command center looks like during a storm. He said the command center is set up in the engineering department and is led by both Engineering and Dispatch personnel. For day-to-day dispatch operations, TUA has one dispatcher for electric, water, and wastewater, but for major weather events and widespread outages, leadership transitions to senior engineering staff to dispatch. Potter also explained that dispatch is responsible for assigning crews, prioritizing outages and coordinating system-wide restoration efforts.

“They understand the grind a little better and how to coordinate that so they’re always on standby to be caught up to help with dispatch.”

As for field assessment, Potter said that a service man and two engineering personnel go out into the field during storms to assess system damage, like how many poles are broken, how much wire is down, and so on. Potter credits the two engineering personnel, as they were former linemen, and can make quick fixes for smaller situations, like fixing a blown fuse for a smaller outage.

When talking about crew deployment strategy, Potter said this was probably the last major change they made in, as previously, if a storm came, TUA would start getting outage alerts and would send out crews immediately. He said what they learned from this was that crews would get tied up for hours handling one outage, while there were a couple of hundred more people without power that the crews should be working on. So now, per Potter, instead of sending out a crew immediately, all crews will report to Engineering for initial briefing and assignment, as the system is evaluated before widespread dispatch begins.

“We let it pass, and we see what we’re dealing with, and then we will start assigning the crews based on the number of outages,” Potter said.

The service territory will then be divided into quadrants for initial deployment. Potter said crews will be assigned based on the number of outages, as well as critical infrastructure at the hospital. The crews will then address major feeder lines before smaller taps and individual services, before resolving smaller outages. As for communication protocols, Potter took a moment to thank the board for its approval to purchase new radios.

“They’re great,” Potter said. “What that does is it lets the entire team know what’s going on in the field, and that’s critical when you’re dealing with electricity, closing breakers and switches, so that others know what’s going on.”

Potter briefly touched on the logistics and crew support, which he said that TUA has 91 employees, and can utilize the entire team to help during a storm event, from answering calls to taking material and equipment to coordinating delivery of supplies to the field. He added that during extended or multiday events, a Crew Care Coordinator is designated and their role is to ensure all personnel have what they need to remain safe, rested and effective. This includes stationing crews in local hotels, coordinating meals for crews working extended hours and ensuring access to food, water and other necessities in the field.

“We’ve learned a lot from the 2016 tornado that hit us,” Potter said. “That was a week-long event, so a lot of these things were born because of the 2016 tornado.”

In the event of multi-day storm events, TUA operates with an all-hands-on-deck approach, utilizing personnel across all departments to support restoration efforts. Potter praised Director of Operations Eric Burton for being able to contact supervisors ahead of a storm to coordinate with their teams, “Thankfully, we have a very dedicated team and everyone’s always willing to step up and help,” Potter said.

As for how TUA communicates with customers, Potter said they do a fairly good job of that through TUA LightTube’s Facebook page, pointing out how TUA provided constant updates during the period where they asked residents to conserve their water shortly after Winter Storm Fern. He added that TUA has an IVR (interactive voice response) system that calls and or sends text messages to customers with updates, as well as the outage map that customers can access.

“We have a wide variety of ways to reach our customers, but we do want to be sure that information is accurate,” Potter said. “We don’t want to rush information for the sake of saying something can get it out to the customers. We want to be accurate with it.”

Board member Dr. Jimmy Blanks said it was important that they let the public know that TUA is proactive and has plans in place for emergencies. Board member Patty Deen added that she liked seeing that TUA practices and goes through the protocols. Potter said they practice multiple times a year as Tullahoma will experience widespread outages three to four times a year.

Board member Daryl Welch asked Potter what the board could do to help the team during a storm, and Potter said to give them a pat on the back and take them a beverage, like a Coke or hot coffee.

“That means the world to them guys,” Potter said. “It’s a dangerous job, and it’s more dangerous during the storm, and it’s more uncomfortable. It’s either cold or hot, and that’s probably the most beneficial thing the board could do.”

Potter also showed data regarding tree-related outages and the money spent each year on TUA’s right-ofway program, which involves spraying and trimming trees. He noted as he gathered the data to present to the board, Potter saw that TUA’s dollars were trending down over the years during outages.

“We’re spending less dollars and having less outages due to trees,” Potter said. “That means we’re doing something right.”

Potter then showed the 2025 system average interruption frequency index, which showed that TUA LightTube customers experience an average of 0.78 outages a year, or less than one outage a year for TUA’s 11,000 customers. In comparison, all the utilities in TUA’s region experience 0.84 outages a year. As for the customer average interruption duration, which is how fast TUA fixes an outage, TUA on average fixes an outage in about 60 minutes, while utilities in the region average about 94 minutes to restore power. The last chart he showed was the system average interruption duration, which showed that the average that a TUA customer is impacted by an outage is about 47 minutes a year, while customers for utilities in region averaged at 75 minutes a year.

“A good way to look at it is less than one outage per year on average at less than one hour of duration time of outage,” Potter explained.

Potter concluded his presentation by sharing that TUA has won the RP3 (Reliable Public Power Provider) award several times since 2007, and said it is a tremendous amount of work to put in the documentation that is to be provided to be even considered as they look at everything.

“You don’t just apply and get those awards,” he said. “They mean something.”