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US DOE prepared to coordinate restoration this hurricane season, official says

The U.S. Department of Energy has spent months preparing and expanding its tools for coordinating energy system restoration efforts of industry and local, state and federal governments during the 2018 hurricane season, Devon Streit, DOE deputy assistant secretary of the division of Infrastructure Security and Energy Restoration, or ISER, said in a recent blog post on the agency's website.

The DOE hosted table-top training exercises, held pre-storm season coordination calls and, for the first time, gave state-level emergency operations centers and coordinators access to its interactive geographic information system tool called EAGLE-I, Streit said in the June 11 blog post. That tool helps users monitor and report the status of critical energy infrastructure assets and coordinate recovery efforts in real time.

"By working together, we will be better prepared as a nation to respond and quickly recover from hurricanes as well as other disasters," she said.

Hurricanes and their accompanying extreme wind speeds, rainfall and resulting flooding have caused major blackouts and necessitated recovery efforts costing billions of dollars in past years, and the Trump administration has made energy system resilience a key priority going forward. Street's division of the DOE is part of the agency's Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response that Energy Secretary Rick Perry created in February to enable more coordinate preparedness and response to natural and man-made threats.

Perry and President Donald Trump on June 6 also attended a hurricane briefing at the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters.

Seventeen named storms formed in the Atlantic basin in 2017, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Those storms included Hurricane Harvey, which flooded Texas, Hurricane Irma, which pummeled the Florida coastline, and Hurricane Maria, which effectively flattened nearly all energy infrastructure in Puerto Rico.

The 2018 hurricane season is forecast to be similarly busy. Colorado State University's Department of Atmospheric Science earlier in the year predicted that the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season, which typically runs from June through November, will see 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes of Category 3 or stronger wind speeds, which is slightly above the 30-year average.

In addition to coordinating restoration response when a storm hits, DOE also publishes situation reports on its website detailing energy sector impacts and updating the public on recovery efforts.