City & Community, Community

Clean water, clear communication: Springfield Utility applying lessons from historic ice storm

SPRINGFIELD – The Springfield Utility Board is applying geospatial mapping technology to streamline communication with the public after last year’s ice storm.

On Jan. 8, the Springfield Utility Board met for a special work session to discuss emergency preparedness and its After-Action Report about last year’s ice storm. Both water and power divisions gave a 20-minute presentation proposing their suggestions for improvements. 

In case you missed it …

From Jan. 13-17, 2024, Springfield faced severe weather conditions that brought serious damage to infrastructure and homes and disrupted power and critical services for days. SUB reported that at least a third of its system – 11,000 customers – was left without power.

Days after the ice storm slammed Springfield in January 2024, cleanup was underway but would take months to complete. CHRONICLE ARCHIVE PHOTOS

“This storm was four days of active damage. The last time that we had an ice storm come through, when we saw the most damage we’d ever seen, was in 2014,” Meredith Clark, Springfield Utility Board community relations manager, said in a 2024 Chronicle interview. “We had seven broken poles in our system during that time. … With this storm, we have over 80 and counting.”

1st Street in Springfield during the 2024 ice storm. CHRONICLE ARCHIVE PHOTO

On Feb. 6, 2024, SUB held a public listening session for the community to provide insight into the storm. At that meeting, SUB general manager Jeff Nelson acknowledged the board’s need for improvement.

“We’re finding that we need to make adjustments in how we communicate to our customers, and explaining what our process is, and explaining what they can expect – even in a situation where there’s a lot of unexpected answers,” Nelson said.

Craig Murphy, an audience member at that meeting, recommended SUB use a text service for important updates. 

Progress and action

At the Jan. 8 meeting, Nelson emphasized the importance of the board’s goal, which is to increase communication with the public. 

Joshua Hughes, an application developer for the electric division, and Keoki Lapina, an engineering supervisor for the water division, presented different outage mapping software. 

Hughes presented a heat map that can show active electric outages as well as when crews are on the scene fixing the issue. Hughes said the software is still in development and could be ready for activation “within the next few days.”

Lapina discussed the geolocating of facilities with data in order to increase public alerts, communication, and access. Lapina presented an “interactive map that illustrates different water notices.” 

The board members said they plan on readdressing these proposals in future meetings in March or April.


This reporting is supported by the Catalyst Journalism Project at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.

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