{"id":10998,"date":"2024-02-12T15:06:08","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T15:06:08","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"Gas-meters-underwater-What-increased-flooding-means-for-NH-energy-infrastructure-54016002\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=10998","title":{"rendered":"What increased flooding means for NH energy infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A
A beaver dam caused flooding at an Eversource substation in Northwood last year following a heavy rain. (Courtesy of Eversource)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Unitil
Unitil gas technician Scott Murray checks gas service meters at Hampton Beach after historic high-tide flooding on Jan. 13. (Courtesy of Unitil)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>

When historic high-tide flooding struck Hampton Beach on a Saturday in January, Unitil received reports of submerged natural gas service meters and regulators. Gas technicians decided to proactively conduct door-to-door inspections \u2013 approximately 3,000 meters were checked for damage.<\/p>\n

As unprecedented flooding walloped the coast that day, Unitil warned customers about serious hazards, namely wet electrical wiring and gas service equipment. If someone suspected a gas leak, they were urged to call 911 and move to a safe environment.<\/p>\n

While the gas system itself wasn\u2019t directly impacted by the flooding, Unitil ultimately shut off about 100 meters that had sustained damage and required repairs or replacement.<\/p>\n

The science of what actually happened on Jan. 13 isn\u2019t settled \u2013 whether the area was due for a historic extreme weather event, akin to the Blizzard of \u201878, or if the storm was climate change-driven \u2013 said Jennifer Jacobs, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of New Hampshire. But what is certain is that high-tide flooding is becoming increasingly common due to years of sea level rise, scientists say.<\/p>\n

For the utilities that provide residents and businesses with electricity and gas services, it\u2019s an escalating reality they\u2019re considering in their strategic plans. From substations, to transformers, to individual gas meters at homes, flooding and storm surge pose threats to energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very fair to say this will be a reference point event for us as we think about things like coastal flooding and what that means,\u201d Alec O\u2019Meara, external affairs director for Unitil, said about the Jan. 13 ordeal.<\/p>\n

According to UNH research projections, between 2020 and 2099, the state can expect a twofold or threefold increase in extreme precipitation events. Sea levels are estimated to rise between 0.6 and 2 feet by 2050, and between 1.6 and 6.6 feet by 2100, depending on greenhouse gas concentrations.<\/p>\n

During the back-to-back flood events on Jan. 10 and 13, municipal officials and coastal residents remarked they\u2019d never seen storm impacts quite so bad. Seawalls were breached and destroyed, swaths of Route 1A were closed entirely, and handfuls of residents along Hampton Beach evacuated their homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised not by which areas flooded, because we\u2019ve mapped them out pretty well, but that these levels were levels I wasn\u2019t expecting now,\u201d said Jacobs, who studies flooding and its impact on coastal resiliency, infrastructure, and transportation.<\/p>\n

The verdict is still out on the true cause of the extreme weather in January, and Jacobs said her colleagues at UNH are actively working on related research. Regardless, she said, the flooding serves as a grim harbinger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think as a community, this is a wake-up call because with a changing climate, what this does is it shows us a little bit about what it would look like if the sea level was a couple extra feet higher,\u201d Jacobs said.<\/p>\n

Unitil\u2019s response to Jan. 13 flooding<\/h2>\n

Unitil\u2019s response efforts on the weekend of Jan. 13 were zeroed in on Hampton because it experienced the worst coastal flooding. The morning after the storm, the utility\u2019s mobile emergency operations center was deployed and the door-to-door inspections began.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Meara said technicians were looking specifically at the gas meters and regulators at each individual home, both the \u201centry points\u201d for gas service into a structure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose need to be functioning properly for any of the appliances in the home to do what they\u2019re supposed to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Of most concern is that submerged or partially submerged gas meters can leak or malfunction. If any natural gas equipment has been underwater, it shouldn\u2019t be used until it\u2019s been inspected by a professional.<\/p>\n

The good news, O\u2019Meara said, is the majority of inspections didn\u2019t reveal damage \u2013 approximately 100 of the 3,000 meters inspected had to be shut off, and most of those impacted were back up and running by Tuesday of the following week.<\/p>\n

The historic flood event reminded Unitil why it embarked on a company-wide climate scenario exercise during the summer of 2022, where employees took two possible climate change outcomes \u2013 varying degrees of warming \u2013 and applied them to their infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Based on the analysis, O\u2019Meara said, Unitil\u2019s substations, poles, and transformers don\u2019t appear to be significantly impacted, but the exercise underscored the need to be prepared for extreme weather that strikes unexpectedly, because the utility will likely find itself responding to outages more frequently.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be looking at what happened with the flooding on the beach and compare that to the modeling we did ahead of time,\u201d O\u2019Meara said. \u201cDoes it align with what we did? Do we need to change our strategic plan? Broadly speaking, based on the work we\u2019ve done so far, we feel good about the infrastructure itself. The thing we need to plan for is how we make sure we have a robust emergency management system in place so that as more frequent storms occur, we are well-prepared to take those on.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the coast<\/h2>\n

Inland parts of the state have also experienced recent historical flood events, meaning it\u2019s not just coastal infrastructure that\u2019s at risk.<\/p>\n

Last July, the Monadnock Region was pummeled by quick and heavy rain that led to washed-out, impassable roads and evacuations. That same rainstorm put much of the downtown area of Vermont\u2019s capital city, Montpelier, underwater. Then, in December, New England was hit with another record-setting, powerful storm that saw rivers overflow in the North County and White Mountains.<\/p>\n

Eversource spokesman William Hinkle said electric substations are one of their primary concerns when it comes to flooding \u2013 for \u201caccessibility, reliability, and safety reasons.\u201d Last May, one of the utility\u2019s substations in Northwood experienced flooding, caused by a beaver dam in a culvert nearby after heavy rain. The substation was under about a foot of water, and the Northwood Fire Department had to bring in a pump truck to pull it from the site.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlooding can pose challenges for accessing our substations during storms, and if equipment is damaged, it could cause an outage for all customers served by that particular substation,\u201d Hinkle said.<\/p>\n

The state ultimately had to use high pressure hoses to break-up the dam in Northwood, and later installed a cage in front of the culvert. Eversource has been closely monitoring the situation in case the beavers return.<\/p>\n

Hinkle noted flooding can also increase safety risks for Eversource crews that have to make repairs, ones that can be \u201cmuch more time-intensive than the repairs to the distribution lines that most people are generally more familiar with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eversource, the state\u2019s largest electric utility, is performing a new flood study this year, having changed to a 500-year-flood risk assessment and design as opposed to a 100-year-flood design. That\u2019s because 100-year floods are increasing in frequency.<\/p>\n

In essence, a 100-year flood has a 1 percent chance of happening each year, while a 500-year flood has a 0.2 percent chance. According to a study from First Street Foundation<\/a>, a research nonprofit that releases climate risk data, roughly 21 percent of the country can now expect their \u201c1-in-100-year flood\u201d to happen every 25 years.<\/p>\n

\n Read more from New Hampshire Bulletin.\u00a0<\/a>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When historic high-tide flooding struck Hampton Beach on a Saturday in January, Unitil received reports of submerged natural gas service meters and regulators. Gas technicians decided to proactively conduct door-to-door inspections \u2013 approximately…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":220,"featured_media":10999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=220]Hadley Barndollar[\/Author] New Hampshire Bulletin","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,508],"tags":[505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[511],"class_list":["post-10998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-top-headlines-cm","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/42909411-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11000,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10998\/revisions\/11000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10998"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=10998"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=10998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}