REU prepares for high winds over the weekend

REDDING, Calif. — Tomorrow, Dec. 10, will bring significant southerly winds to the valley, with gusts potentially exceeding 50 mph in some areas. These conditions may lead to power outages and downed branches, particularly in the north end of the valley.

On Friday, KRCR's Preston Donion spoke with officials at Redding Electric Utility (REU) to learn more about what locals can expect over the weekend and how they can prepare their properties for future wind events.

REU's Program Coordinator, Shawn Avery, explained their company works year-round to prevent interruptions in power as a result of severe weather, whether it's fires, snow, extreme heat or high winds. Of course, mitigation is only part of the response process.

"Our line personnel will be available for callouts when necessary," explained Avery. "We hope that it doesn't happen, but they are prepared for that. Our operations center, our power control center, operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So they are always in contact if there's an issue during inclement weather."

As for outage resolution, Avery explained work to dispatch crews is immediate upon an outage being reported. He says "Troublemen" patrol each and every day from 5 a.m. to 12 a.m. to add an additional line of defense and preparedness.

With storms bearing down in succession, it may be too late to take significant action to protect your home and your electric service this time around, beyond typical precautions such as securing lawn decorations and furniture. For the future though, REU encourages customers to connect with them about problematic trees that impede upon power lines.

“So, our arborists—we have a team of electric utility arborists that that’s what they do for a living, is they do vegetation management around high voltage power lines. And so, we encourage the public, if they see trees that are in lines or close to, don’t ever go do vegetation [management] yourself, but to reach out to us. They can either go onto our website or they can call our customer service line and we can have arborists come out there and look at the trees and determine what needs to be done, as far as vegetation management," Avery explained.

You can visit REU's website for information about their arborist's services, as well as use their outage map should you experience a power disruption.

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