Program Description
At ONE Gas, we adopted API 1173 and Pipeline Safety Management Systems (PSMS) and made it our own by implementing the ONE Gas Safety Management Systems (OSMS) – consisting of 10 elements built on a Plan Do Check Act continuous improvement model. This model is an integral part of our Environmental Safety Health & Compliance (ESH&C) team’s governance program.
In 2018, with a focus on element 8, “Emergency Preparedness and Response,” we pivoted from responding to emergencies and began reshaping into an Integrated Emergency Management Program. An operational leader with extensive experience in this area was appointed as Director of Emergency Management and led this change.
The change began with a gap analysis – analyzing element 8 of API 1173, our regulatory requirements, internal practices, processes, programs, policies and procedures and our need to understand these two new terms “Unified Command/Incident Command Structures” and “external agencies and organizations”. The gap analysis revealed four areas that needed improvement.
We needed four new tactical plans in our Emergency Response Plan. These four areas have served us well in the last two years as the incidents we have experienced have touched all four: Pandemic, Security Threats, Loss of Utilities, and Civil Disturbances.
We needed to integrate Unified Command/ICS methodology into our procedures and our practices.
We needed to both participate in emergency management organizations where the “Whole Community” of Emergency Partnerships can be coordinated and be inclusive of them in our training and exercise programs.
We needed to refine our documents and processes of review and improvement for these activities to reflect the Plan, Do, Check, Act element of our OSMS. We needed Training and Development in an area that we had little experience – Homeland Security, FEMA, NIMS, and Incident Command Systems. Our Director of Emergency Management completed over 40 hours of FEMA/NIMS training both in classroom and online. He developed an internal training module for the field level employees and more in-depth training for the leadership team. It was particularly important for our company to retain our Gas Company Culture and be a Gas Company embracing Emergency Management and not an Emergency Management Agency that does Gas Company work. Our actions included:
Re-writing our Emergency Plan and related procedures, including a complementary Incident Command Systems Guideline.
Joining and participating in government-led emergency management agencies at the state, county and city levels and also their member associations of emergency partners at the regional and state levels.
Inviting emergency partners to participate in our training and exercises.
Developing an emergency response program that utilizes three categories. The program clearly identifies the roles and responsibilities of local operations and executive-level management. The program also outlines the activation criteria for each category. When the emergency response program reaches a category 1 emergency, the entire organization focuses on the incident and our senior executive team leads the management of the incident.
Developing and are refining documentation and processes to capture learning, developmental, and best practices from the engagement of emergency partners, exercises with them, and from the activations of our Emergency Response Plan.
Results/Response to the Program
On March 6, 2020, ONE Gas experienced its first COVID-19 case in Tulsa, Oklahoma. By the end of the next week, we activated our Pipeline Emergency Response Plan (PERP) to Level 2 and merged it with our cross-functional task force that was managing our Pandemic Plan. The activation of the PERP and the cross-functional team is still active today.
By embracing the FEMA/NIMS philosophy, we developed a four-level (Watch, Alert, Warning, and Critical) response plan based on the conditions, both internal and external, of our service areas. Each level corresponds to a different operational response. As our company advanced through the levels, we adjusted operations to minimize gas service disruptions, limit public and customer interactions, reduce resource requirements, and limit discretionary work in an effort to maintain safe and reliable natural gas service. Each level specifies the required PPE.
On March 16, 2020, we planned and initiated the process of transitioning nearly 50% of our workforce to a remote work environment. Our tentative Return to Office date is scheduled for September 7, 2021.
On March 7th, we engaged our injury case management and occupational health contractor – Axiom Medical. We elevated our program to a Medical Officer Review program to help us navigate through the COVID-19 Pandemic. We contracted with Axiom Medical to perform our employee COVID-19 protocol activated employee screening processes and have had more than 120% of our employee count inquires across the last 14 months. A personal screening application for smartphones was developed along with screening equipment and processes at our larger facilities. We acquired the proper COVID-19 PPE early and have not experienced a shortage of the required PPE to meet our protocols. We worked closely in all 3 states with our regulators to develop acceptable customer screening and response systems. Our Facilities have been reconfigured and marked, and we have developed new sanitization processes and equipped our facilities with newer HVAC air sanitization systems. For our employees, we added Paid Pandemic Leave to promote proper adherence to our new policies and procedures. We implemented a voluntary accommodation process for our vulnerable customer facing employees to take them out of harm’s way. We developed direct lines of communications with our 3 state’s departments of emergency EOC’s, Department of Health Agencies, and initiated and hosted one on one meetings with the leadership of the Vaccine Teams in all three states.
February Weather Event
On February 9th and extending through February 19th the ONE Gas service territory experienced a historic and unprecedented 11-day long period of extreme and record-breaking cold weather. The cold air system led to the coldest air in decades across the Southern States, reaching all the way to the Rio Grande Valley, bringing crippling amounts of snow and ice to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas for an extended period.
During the event, we simultaneously experienced constrained supply and increased demand resulting in substantial challenges for system reliability. Curtailment plans were implemented. Customers were encouraged to conserve energy. Despite the challenges, less than 1,000 customers out of 2.2 million customers experienced loss of service during the event.
The Crisis Management Plan was activated on February 13, 2021, at 4:00 pm. On February 23, 2021, at 7:30 am, the Crisis Management Team determined that the situation had stabilized and deactivated the Crisis Management Plan.
