Earthquake: The Continuing Recovery : Turning On the Lights : Working People: When the whole grid went down, it was every power dispatcher’s nightmare--a ‘black start.’

MARCIE L. EDWARDS

Chief load dispatcher, Department of Water and Power

Edwards was among the key people in charge of restoring power to 1.3 million fretful customers. Within 24 hours, she and her crews at DWP control headquarters in the San Fernando Valley had the lights back on for most of L.A.’s 3.5 million people. Edwards, 37, is a 19-year DWP veteran who worked her way up from clerk-typist. She talked with BERKLEY HUDSON about lessons from the quake.

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It took only 11 to 12 seconds last Jan. 17 for all of Los Angeles to be in the dark.

I got here about dawn. I was here for the next four days. We were sleeping on the floor.

To us, restoring power is paramount because we personalize it. We know you could be at your house. You have damage, no water, no heat, no electricity, can’t cook food for children, can’t locate family members.

Dispatchers are the front-line troops. I’m in charge of 40 people, all of them men. My grandfather, my father, my uncle and my ex-husband worked for the department. Everything hinges on the dispatchers. Without them, repair crews don’t know where to go, what to fix or don’t know if it’s safe to work on something. If some logistic nonsense slows crews up or stops them from getting customers’ power back, that’s my fault.

Because I’ve been a dispatcher, I’ve been involved in a lot of stressful situations. You learn how to avoid tunnel vision. That’s a real killer.

Dispatchers are like the guy who has his hands on the wheel of the ship, steering it. They look out for the reefs, high waves.

We have major interconnections with other utilities. In the quake, those shook apart almost immediately. The utilities are meant to break apart safely, come down completely to black so that you don’t damage $30 million, $40 million in equipment by ruining it, like hanging on the starter of your car when you’re trying to get it going and it won’t.

We immediately started having meetings of superintendents, the people over maintenance gangs, construction gangs, relay people. We gave them the priority for what we needed fixed.

We faced things like 30 people in the dispatching room who hadn’t eaten for five or six hours. We didn’t want to break into the K-rations. We found an open 7-Eleven and bought $40 worth of burritos. We found a Ralphs and bought cereal and milk and soup.

We learned we needed something other than the K-rations. Now we have a whole storage bin of soups and stews. I learned I need to stagger staff reporting times in an emergency. I learned you need to evaluate all your sites for helicopter availability. I learned I need to buy a motorcycle to get around traffic. Like a lot of people I was spending 2 1/2 hours, one way, commuting. I’m getting a motorcycle for my birthday in February.

I’m a single mother with a 9-year-old. He weathered the earthquake fairly well. But trying to take care of a home and things at work, I was only sleeping four or five hours a night.

I’m proud to have been successful in the earthquake with people I consider high caliber, the dispatch group. I’m still amazed that it went as well as it did and everyone responded in the right way at the right time.