Prior to Hurricane Ike
That Kentucky’s jurisdictional utilities were largely caught off-guard by the September 14, 2008, Hurricane Ike wind storm is not sur- prising. The National Weather Service (NWS) itself failed to foresee the intensity of the storm until just before it struck.
Jackson Purchase Energy Corp. noted that before the storm (and even as it was occur- ring) local and national forecasters were pre- dicting winds of only 25 to 35 miles per hour in its western Kentucky service area. Kenergy Corp. stated that none of the various media sources monitored by their management and control center personnel predicted Hurricane Ike to slam into Kentucky with sustained winds of 60 miles per hour and gusts in ex- cess of 70 miles per hour.
The Hurricane Ike wind storm was one of the most unusual weather phenomena the Com- monwealth has ever seen. NWS research into the storm has found nothing in Ken- tucky’s history to compare to it.
The unexpected nature of the wind storm, in turn, delayed utilities’ restoration response efforts. Owen Electric Corp. stated that if it had been aware of the sheer magnitude of the outages the storm was going to cause, it would have pulled its resources together sooner, reducing restoration times. Shelby
Energy Corp. said that a lack of advanced warning of the wind storm may have delayed its initial call-up of additional restoration crews.
Although larger utilities such as Duke Energy Kentucky (Duke Kentucky), Louisville Gas & Electric Co. (LG&E) and Kentucky Utilities Co. (KU) have internal weather monitoring capabilities and several personnel assigned to monitor and analyze weather information, even they were surprised by the ferocity of the winds. Duke Kentucky’s parent corpora- tion, Duke Energy, has its own staff of five meteorologists “whose job is to monitor weather conditions twenty-four hours a day, providing the company with needed informa- tion for both planning and trouble response.” However, their up-to-the-minute weather re- ports did not predict the sudden turn that the storm took.
LG&E and KU’s account of the pre-storm events dramatically illustrates the surprise with which Hurricane Ike visited the Common- wealth on September 14, 2008:
Early on September 13th, NOAA pre- dicted the path of Ike to proceed just north of Kentucky as it moved inland Septem- ber 13. However, LG&E and KU contin- ued to monitor weather forecasts and storm predictions to anticipate the poten- tial for changes to the forecast and any impact to the companies' systems. Then, on September 14th, NOAA's predictions put lke well north of Kentucky as it moved inland.
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Indeed, that same day the winds associ- ated with the storm were forecast to be less than 35 to 45 mph on September 14 through the next six days.
In Kentucky, the early morning forecast on September 14 predicted winds that would not be unusual for the region as of 5:00 a.m. EDT that day, NOAA Advisory Number 53 predicted that Hurricane Ike would be downgraded to a tropical de- pression with maximum wind speeds fal- ling below 39 mph. (See figures … pro- vided as part of' Advisory Number 53). The storm was shown as a tropical de- pression with winds of less than 39 mph passing to the north of Kentucky and not significantly impacting the companies' ser- vice areas). Advisory Number 53 also in- cluded an Intensity (Maximum Wind Speed) Probability Table. That table de- scribed maximum forecast winds of 45 mph and placed the probability of Hurri- cane-force winds between the time Advi- sory Number 53 was issued and midday September 15 at less than one percent. Despite those forecasts, the remnants of Hurricane Ike combined with a cold front
crossing the Ohio Valley to cause ex- tremely strong surface winds that blew through the KU and LG&E service areas beginning later in the morning of Septem- ber 14. That phenomenon resulted from 50-80 mph winds around 3,000-6,000 feet above the ground, i.e., a low-level jet stream associated with and ahead of the remnants of Hurricane Ike, being directed downward as surface heating (due to some sunshine) resulted in steep low- level lapse rates (temperatures decreas- ing rapidly with height from the surface to the level of these maximum winds). Such lapse rates allowed winds aloft to mix down to the surface causing the strong, damaging wind gusts. ... While extraordi- nary wind speeds were recorded across much of the area, the maps show a gust of 75 mph recorded in Jefferson County, the heart of LG&E's service territory, and gusts of 70-80 mph just east of Paducah where the greatest concentration of wind damage and power outages in the KU service territory occurred.
Figure 7: Predicted Hurricane Ike storm tracks, as referenced by LG&E and KU in their narrative of the weather forecasts prior to the wind storm.
The very high sustained winds of the Hurri- cane Ike wind storm made conditions too hazardous for some of the utilities to begin their restoration efforts on the day of the storm. Kenergy reported that “high winds made working conditions unsafe and impossi- ble for crews to actually restore power for most of the first day….” Kenergy said it was only marginally successful in making its initial damage assessment because “new damage was happening while the assessments were taking place.” Owen Electric called in its con- struction crews and damage assessors dur- ing the storm but, due to safety concerns, it did not send them out to the field until after the storm subsided.