1. 2016 Mutual Aid Drill August 30 - September 1, 2016
Natural Gas Utilities
Delivering America’s Energy

2. Mutual Assistance Drill
The drill was conducted August 30 - September 1, 2016
5 companies were impacted by an imaginary Hurricane Alex
Columbia Gas of MA
Eversource
Liberty
Unitil
National Grid
The five companies submitted Requests for Assistance (RFAs) totaling 1,074 personnel

3. Mutual Assistance Drill
39 Companies participated in the drill and returned offers of resources totaling about 1,548.
Needs were met in most categories with a slight shortfall in Safety Personnel.
10% of the responding companies offered no Supervision for their personnel.

4. Compared with 2014 Drill January 2014 August 2016 3 5 1,000 1,074 58
Requesting Companies 3 5
Resources Requested
1,000
1,074
Responding Companies 58 39
Resources Offered
2,400
1,548

5. RFA Details need to be considered during resource assignment
After the 2014 Drill, the RFA form was revised to add additional details to ensure that the right resources were assigned.
In 2016, NGA handled the assignment of resources by themselves. AGA and regionals should better coordinate communication so that no one organization gets overwhelmed.
Without proper coordination this drill, the RFA forms were not utilized as designed.

6. RFA Details need to be considered during resource assignment
Union vs Non Union - at least 5 companies that answered no or did not answer the union question were paired with the 2 requesting companies that required unions
Service Restoration category Included “Appliance Repair Experience” One company requested 90 received 10 while another 62 were assigned elsewhere.
Cast Iron experience vs no Cast Iron experience met most of the needs but
Liberty requested 10 – assigned 2
Unitil requested 0 – assigned 7
This will be harder to fill in the future.

7. Incomplete RFA Responses
7 responding companies (18%) did not answer whether their employees were members of a union
18 responding companies (46%) did not detail their estimated pay rates.
29 responding companies (74%) did not sign the RFA
All 5 requesting companies and 6 responding companies (25%) used a previous draft version of the RFA that did not match the current AGA version.
4 companies submitted complete RFA responses:
We Energies
Minnesota Energy Resources
Wisconsin Public Service
Louisville Gas & Electric

8. Post Drill Survey Results
Low High
Avg 2014 = 4.19
Avg 2016 = 4.40

9. Post Drill Survey Results
Low High
Avg 2014 = 3.95
Avg 2016 = 4.27

10. Post Drill Survey Results
Avg = 3.50
Avg 2016 = 4.33

11. Post Drill Survey Results

12. Post Drill Survey Results
Suggestions for improving the Form
Requestor: The form could have more detail to logistical items i.e. travel (air, hotel accommodations)
Responder: Revise “Service Restoration/Relights” and “Meter set” categories to "Service Relight/Meter sets residential" and "Service Relight/Meter sets Commercial >400000BTU“
Responder: Add any special PPE that may required.
Responder: Add area for responding companies to add other details on their offer to respond.
Such as "Holding" resources because it already "Offered" resources to an affiliate.

13. Post Drill Survey Results
Some company improvement needs
We do not have a go to person in a leadership position that has been identified to lead a team if mutual aid is requested.
We can better prepare ourselves by contacting the potential resources for housing, food etc.
Improvements are needed in specific logistics: hotel, meals, travel, and exploring added rental vans/trucks to our fleet for responders
Develop a planned response with numbers of people and pieces of equipment

14. Post Drill Survey Results
Some industry improvement needs
Transferring of resource to and from the destination. We are still not sure if our commercial vehicles can pass through multiple states without any issues.

15. Post Drill Survey Results
Some industry improvement needs
Gas industry uses paper forms, whereas electric industry uses electronic. AGA/SGA/NGA etc. should coordinate with EEI/NAMAG.

16. Post Drill Survey Results
Some industry improvement needs
Highly beneficial to nominate AGA/NGA/SGA/other liaisons to be positioned at the incident command post, staging area(s), and within the emergency operation centers (EOCs), if mutual aid is requested.

17. Post Drill Survey Results
Some industry improvement needs
We need to include a mechanism for identifying and seeking contractors ahead of Mutual Aid utilities. Perhaps, a separate contractor request form can be developed?

18. Post Drill Survey Results
What Now?
New MOAA’s have been sent out to be signed – old MOAAs expire Dec. 31, 2016
Communication regarding AGA Mutual Aid activities has now changed. Communication will be limited to the Mutual Aid Database only.
Customer Field Services, Distribution Construction and Maintenance, Managing Committee, and Operations Executives will no longer receive correspondence.

19. Questions?