When a rare and fast‑forming bomb cyclone tore across Puget Sound in November 2024, it delivered one of the most disruptive storms Snohomish County and Camano Island had faced in years. A sudden plunge in atmospheric pressure unleashed fierce easterly and southeasterly winds, toppling trees, tearing down power lines, and overwhelming infrastructure already saturated by weeks of heavy rain. Within hours, entire communities across Snohomish County PUD’s service territory were plunged into darkness.
As crews raced to respond, nearly 166,000 customers—about 44% of the PUD’s customer base—lost power at the storm’s peak, many in areas unaccustomed to such severe damage. Communication systems that thousands of customers rely on for updates buckled under unprecedented demand, compounding confusion during the storm’s most critical moments and adding new layers of complexity to an already formidable restoration effort.
The PUD’s communication efforts, internally and externally, had successes and challenges. The lessons learned helped reshape the utility’s future response in how it communicates, coordinates, and collaborates during major storm events.
Communication breakdowns
Over the past decade, Snohomish PUD customers have grown accustomed to using the outage map to report outages and stay informed during storm events. When the bomb cyclone struck, it did so abruptly and impacted much of the service territory almost simultaneously. Tens of thousands of customers lost power quickly, creating an unprecedented surge in activity as customers attempted to report outages, enroll in outage alerts, and access real-time information on the outage map. During this initial and most critical phase of the storm, the volume and timing of user activity exceeded prior storm experiences, temporarily overwhelming the outage map.
The outage map, along with outage alerts and broadcast messaging tools that rely on it, was unavailable for a few hours during the height of when customer outages occurred. While this represented a relatively small portion of the overall storm response and restoration effort, it coincided with the moment when many customers were first losing power and actively seeking information. As a result, the disruption had a notable impact on the customer experience.
Because much of the storm damage was in rural areas, cell coverage was weak or nonexistent, making it difficult for crews in the field to update the PUD’s outage map when they arrived onsite and to communicate back to crew dispatch or the energy control center.
Communication successes
Despite the challenges the bomb cyclone presented, employees demonstrated exceptional teamwork, driven by their passion for service and commitment to our communities. The bomb cyclone response was the first time Snohomish PUD used a standardized storm report developed and used to create cohesive and consistent information internally. It included an external report that emergency management, customer service, strategic account representatives, and government relations liaisons could reference to answer customer inquiries and ensure messages were aligned.
While the outage map was down, communications staff turned to social media to keep customers updated and in the know about where crews were working, giving customers hope their lights would be on soon. Once the outage map was restored early in the storm, staff focused on leveraging the broadcast message tool to keep customers as up to date as possible through map and text messages.
Media inquiries poured in. A testament to positive relationships with line crews and staff, the communications team was able to leverage opportunities to help boost morale while also showcasing a more complete picture into each piece of storm response. The team was able to get media footage of crews repairing damage but also focus on creative media stories—like a behind-the-scenes tour of the warehouse and mutual aid onboarding. One of the photos snapped at the height of restoration efforts won first place in NWPPA’s Excellence in Communications Awards contest.
“A storm of this magnitude and the resulting restoration effort tests all of your systems and your people,” said Lisa Hunnewell, Snohomish PUD chief communications officer. “It was amazing to watch our team work together to share information with teams across the PUD while also ensuring that our customers had the updates they needed.”
Lessons learned
The bomb cyclone underscored the need for enhancements in Snohomish PUD’s response to incidents requiring a higher level of command and coordination. The PUD was, and continues to be, committed to learning and improving from the experience. A comprehensive after-action review was completed the following March after storm season.
Staff at all levels were interviewed to share successes and recommend improvements in hopes of creating smoother operations for future events. Recommendations included adopting a more formal incident command structure, hiring a full-time storm coordinator, and drafting and implementing a storm training and exercise plan. After the storm, staff focused heavily on updating and improving outage map technology for enhanced performance and reliability. They upgraded the PUD’s technology, reduced dependencies on other systems, and added user experience improvements.
The updated outage map now allows users to zoom in to the individual customer level, providing more complete information on each specific outage. Outages are grouped together by incident to give customers a better idea of what incident their outage is involved in, and essential information such as estimated time of restoration, outage cause, and number of customers impacted can be found more easily at the top of the “Outage Details” window. Customers are now able to sign up for proactive outage alerts to receive outage texts and emails as soon as their power is out.
In addition, crews are becoming more familiar with updating the system when they arrive on a job site, which automatically updates the outage map and lets customers know their outage is being worked on. This was just beginning to be tested when the bomb cyclone hit and has since been more widely instituted by field staff.
During a recent storm, the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management used a countywide Microsoft Teams chat. Snohomish PUD employees from the emergency management division were included in the chat, allowing them to quickly update 342 community partners and greatly expand reach. Embedding staff in the county’s emergency operations center proved vital and will continue into future storms. Having staff in the emergency operations center helped create and build cross-agency relationships, assisted in the dispelling of rumors, and broke down silos.
Introducing our new storm coordinator
The leading recommendation after the after-action review was to hire a full-time storm coordinator. The position focuses on fostering collaboration, enhancing communication, implementing metrics, and investing in training to build a more resilient and responsive organization. Just before the 2025 storm season, Snohomish PUD hired Lindley Latham to take on the role. Latham joined the PUD several years ago and most recently worked in the energy control center.
“This role is still new and evolving, and so am I,” Latham said. “Every storm teaches us something. By strengthening how we collaborate, coordinate, and communicate, we are building a foundation that will only get stronger with each season. I am looking forward to helping make a difference for our crews and our customers.”
Latham, in addition to helping lead the transition to an incident command system structure, implemented additional tabletop exercises in 2025 to improve storm training for staff and address gaps prior to storm season.
Changes in action
In December 2025, the Puget Sound and surrounding areas experienced a major storm with severe winds. The area, saturated by historic flooding, was vulnerable to extensive damage. At the height of this storm, 63,700 Snohomish PUD customers had no power.
Using recommendations from the bomb cyclone after-action review, PUD personnel implemented multiple changes that resulted in better communication and coordination among all departments. The outage map performed exceptionally, handling the increase in traffic with no downtime or performance concerns. Wi-Fi extenders installed in vehicles made it easier for crews to communicate from the field, even in cell dead spots, and the implementation of the incident command system helped with information flow.
The PUD’s engagement team piloted a charging station and information table in one of the hardest-hit areas with great success. Locals could come and get the latest information directly from PUD employees while charging their devices and enjoying a cup of coffee.
The storm highlighted the efforts Snohomish PUD has put into improving internal and external communications. Staff are working with other utilities who use incident command systems to learn best practices and further integrate the system. Snohomish PUD aims to delight our customers and energize life in our communities. We will always learn and adapt from each storm to make the next easier to navigate for everyone.
