Local officials and energy executives said the lessons they learned after Hurricane Ike hit the area four years ago helped them recover from the storms that blew through the area last week.

Ike caused power outages that stretched into two weeks for many of the estimated 2.6 million statewide who lost power – likely twice the number of Ohioans who lost power during the June 29 storm.

Officials estimated the June 29 storm took 90 minutes to blow through the region.

The June 29 storm was a rare event in the Midwest, a “super” derecho or land hurricane.

It swept in from Fort Wayne, Ind. and left a 700-mile-wide path of damage on a 12-hour march to Washington, D.C., taking out power to large cities amid a triple-digit summer heat wave. Estimates are that something short of 4 million lost power.

For Duke Energy and the Hamilton electric department, June 29 began a week of all-hands-on-deck, around-the-clock work schedules and employees working with short breaks until the crisis subsided.

“Given what the rest of the country experienced, I feel like it was a real well-oiled machine to get the outages restored in the time we did,” said Sally Thelen, spokeswoman for Duke Energy.

Duke Energy said it anticipated the June 29 storm’s impact early, and called for mutual aid from other utilities quickly. Detailed reports from the utility’s Indiana operations poured in before the storm hit Ohio, Thelen said.

“Duke Energy was able to know what conditions were headed our way and could prepare as a result. Not so much with Ike, which was a freak of nature and a storm of the century,” Thelen said.

One of the most important decisions, Thelen said, was opening a staging area at the Butler County Fairgrounds in Hamilton. She said a more northern mobile office helped the workers reach those in Butler and Warren counties impacted by the high winds in a “more timely manner.”

The other two staging areas were located near the Eastgate Mall and the Norwood Lateral.

She said workers from Duke and those who provided mutual aid from nine neighboring states met every morning at the staging area to review what they learned the day before and what to expect that day. All of their supplies were also stored at the fairgrounds, which saved on travel time, she said.

Thelen said for the first time during a summer storm, Duke implemented a lesson it learned during the 2010 ice storm. She said energy officials worked closely with the local Emergency Management Agencies to target the hardest hit areas. She said this communication allowed for a “seamless” working relationship.

In Hamilton, Rich Engle, director of public works/city engineer, said the city was “pretty lucky” because it didn’t receive as severe damage as neighboring communities. He said city workers spent most of the week removing downed trees.

In Middletown, Steve Husemann, interim public works and utilities director, said the severe wind damaged numerous traffic signals and generated about 30 hours of overtime for his department.

He said the city’s water supply was shut off for less than a minute and the wastewater plant was down for about two hours.

While Husemann wasn’t here for Hurricane Ike in 2008, he said city workers made adjustments and improvements in how they dealt with the high winds.

“You find things that educate you,” he said.

For instance, during the most recent outage, Husemann said he noticed the stairwells in the City Building were dark, and if the building was full of people, this could have created a dangerous situation.

He called it “relatively minor,” but said it can be corrected by hooking up the electric to the emergency generator system.

Tony Pochard, director of Hamilton electric, said after Hurricane Ike, his department became more diligent in trimming trees, improved its pole inspection program of the 2,000 wooden poles in the city and increased its communications with customers, city employees and the media.

He also said workers improved prioritizing their work orders. They repaired outages that impacted the most people first. Pochard called it “getting the biggest bang for our buck.”

While Pochard said it may be weeks until the cost of the storm is determined, he said “recovering operations” are budgeted, typically at 15 percent for overtime.

Matt Haverkos, operations manager for Butler County Emergency Management Agency, said the state is preparing its cost assessment of the storms, adding up the cost of their OT and equipment costs.

He did notice that more residents and agencies owned generators this year after being without power for days following Hurricane Ike.

“We learn lessons every time we go through something like this,” he said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2842 or rmccrabb@coxohio.com.