When Typhoon Mawar churned over Guam in May 2023, it toppled trees, knocked out communications, and decimated the small Pacific island’s utility infrastructure. As cleanup efforts got underway, Premium Utility Contractor was there, helping local authorities on the ground and coordinating part of the restoration effort from the other side of the world.
Mawar formed in mid-May and passed just off Guam’s shores on May 24. It brought peak gusts up to 165 miles-per-hour and dropped more than a foot of rain in some spots, according to meteorologists. The Guam Power Authority said the vast majority of its customers lost power.
Premium Utility Contractor approached officials at the US naval base on Guam after the storm and was quickly involved in intense conversations about the island’s needs. Thousands of people were in the dark. Help was thousands of miles away. Guam did not have the labor, equipment, and material that it needed to make repairs.
More than three years after the COVID-19 pandemic snarled global supply chains, supply chain problems posed another challenge. Lead times for standard equipment had more than doubled since the beginning of 2020, compounding the already complicated task of supplying an island nearly 4,000 miles west of Hawaii and more than 5,500 miles west of the American mainland.
Premium assigned senior leadership Andrew Vaughn and his team of project managers to assess damage on Guam’s naval base, its Air Force base, and across the island. Premium administrators got to work to help procure materials for repairs. And three overhead line crews made the long journey to Guam to join local workers.
Premium established a relationship with Air Charter Services, a charter company, to fly supplies and power line materials such as transformers, conductor, fast trip devices, automated switches, hardware, and dozens of portable generators from Los Angeles International Airport into Guam with use of a Boeing 747.
Within the tangle of snapped trees and downed wires, Premium’s crews worked with the Guam Power Authority to prioritize restoring electricity to crucial community centers and at-risk individuals including hospitals, schools, elderly homes, and people with medical conditions that require an oxygen supply.
Local counterparts helped Premium navigate Guam as the operation continued. Premium brought new ideas, methods, and practices to the historic restoration effort.
As the effort continued, Premium also partnered with Matson, a shipping company, to ferry hundreds of transformers and poles, as well as miles of badly needed conductors, across the ocean on boats.
From the US, Premium’s staff stayed in communication with officials in Guam, working 24-hours a day to bridge the time difference between them.
On the front lines of the restoration effort, crews met industry rules and regulations while following a guiding principle of insulating and isolating personnel from energized portions of the electric grid. Crews also kept safe in the face of more specific challenges including humidity, heat, and an extremely deteriorated system on Guam.
With more than 160,000 people still living on an island less than 30 miles long and 10 miles wide, Premium’s crews stayed in constant communication with local officials, securing work zones and providing generators to customers with health conditions to keep residents safe.
Once Premium helped get the lights on, and once crews transitioned out of the emergency phase of their response, Premium remained busy, performing daily maintenance and ongoing capital work on Guam’s grid.
Premium marked a milestone in its first major overseas restoration project.
Now more than a year later, Premium Utility Contractor is still helping organize monthly charter flights to bring supplies to Guam. Premium’s crews are also still on the island for storm hardening work.
When Mawar felled Guam’s trees and utility poles alike, Premium swept in to help fix the damage. While rebuilding the grid, Premium added new types of conductors, poles, and material engineered to withstand the storms Guam will face in the future. Premium also used new foam to backfill utility pole holes and better support poles in Guam’s rocky terrain.
With industry experience and global insight, Premium built Guam back stronger.