WALLA WALLA, Wash. – Four U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Walla Walla District employees deployed during the past week to support the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) power grid repair mission in Puerto Rico, according to District emergency management officials.
Deployees volunteered from duty locations throughout the District -- Doug McClellan, Spokane, Washington, resident, who serves as a power plant operator at Lower Monumental Lock and Dam; Roberto Barajas, a Grandview, Washington, resident, who serves as a facility services assistant at Ice Harbor Lock and Dam; Chris Brown, a Kamiah, Idaho, resident, who serves as an electrical/electronics craftsworker at Dworshak Dam and Reservoir near Ahsahka, Idaho; and Chris Rocha, an Orofino, Idaho, resident, who serves as a power plant mechanic at Dworshak Dam.
While deployed, all four will serve as quality assurance specialists, verifying work performed under government contracts. In addition to having the technical knowledge and skills needed for a specific deployment position, employee-volunteers must have their supervisor’s permission to deploy, meet a variety of FEMA and Corps training requirements, and complete a medical screening to be approved to go.
Additionally, Joe Yee, a recently retired Corps cost engineer temporarily returned to duty to provide reach-back cost engineering support to FEMA’s Temporary Housing mission. Although assigned to a Walla Walla District deployment position, his mission duties allow him to work remotely from Sacramento, California.
BACKGROUND
As assigned by FEMA, the Corps leads the federal effort to repair the hurricane-damaged electrical power grid in support of the Government of Puerto Rico. Working in partnership with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, the Department of Energy and FEMA, the Corps’ priority is to safely restore reliable power to the people of Puerto Rico as quickly as possible.
Puerto Rico has about 2,400 miles of transmission lines across the island and 30,000 miles of distribution lines with 300 sub-stations. It is estimated that 80 percent of the grid was affected by two hurricanes which ravaged the island just two weeks apart -- Irma (Sept. 7, 2017 - category 5) and Maria (Sept. 20, 2017 - category 4). As of April 17, 2018, about 97.1 percent of the 1.47 million customers who are able to receive electric power have their service restored.
Since late-August 2017, more than 100 hurricane-related deployment positions, nicknamed “taskers,” have been filled by Walla Walla District volunteers, supporting missions that provide emergency temporary power, manage storm debris disposal, assess damaged critical infrastructure, provide temporary housing and roofing, restore power grid capability and logistics-management services.
For more information about the Corps’ ongoing hurricane-response missions in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, visit
http://www.usace.army.mil/Hurricane-Irma/.
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