What Utilities Can Learn From the Latest Storm Season

As storm season winds down, utilities are taking stock of what they’ve learned to prepare for what comes next. In this episode of Experience Better: The CX Podcast™ by KUBRA, guest host Cali Johnston revisits highlights from a recent KUBRA webinar exploring how utilities can enhance their storm-season communication strategies.

Featuring Todd Clement, Senior Product Manager at KUBRA, the episode explores how overlapping events, compressed timelines, and rising customer expectations are reshaping storm response. Todd shares lessons learned on boosting outage notification enrollment, running realistic drills, and preparing pre-scheduled communications that help utilities stay connected when it matters most.

Listen Now

The transcript has been edited for clarity and readability while maintaining the original content and intent of the speakers.

Cali Johnston:

Hey everyone, and welcome to Experience Better, the CX Podcast by KUBRA. I’m Cali Johnston, Senior Product Marketing Manager here at KUBRA, and I’m very excited to be your guest host today.

Now that storm season is wrapping up, we thought it would be a great time to look back and see what we can learn from it. In this episode, we’ll be revisiting some highlights from a recent webinar where our KUBRA experts discussed the rise in severe weather, how customer expectations are changing, and what utilities can do to communicate more effectively when it matters most.

You’ll hear from experts like Lemuel Satamkar and Todd Clement, Senior Product Manager here at KUBRA. They’ll break down some of the key takeaways from the 2024 storm season — and share how those insights can help utilities get ahead of whatever comes next.

So let’s kick things off with Lem, who’s got some eye-opening stats about just how much severe weather has increased, and the impact that it’s having.

The Growing Impact of Severe Weather on Utilities and Communities

Lemuel Satamkar: 

From 2015 to 2019, we had 43 severe storms, 8 tropical cyclones, and 3 winter storms. When we look at these events from 2020 to 2024, severe storms have gone up by almost 68%, tropical cyclones have gone up by a whopping 163%, while winter storms have gone up by 67%. So, however you look at the data, it tells the same story that these billion-dollar Earth climate and disaster events will continue to rise in the foreseeable future.

However, keep in mind that these events are not just increasing in frequency, but they're also becoming a lot more deadly. The NCI reports back on the death toll caused by these events. And when we look at just tropical cyclones, from 1996 to 2011, we had 2,644 deaths that were recorded. And from 2012 to 2024, that number has gone up by almost 60%.

Cali:

What Lem really drives home here is that it’s not just about more storms — it’s that they’re becoming more dangerous. And that’s changing how customers see their utilities. They’re not just sitting around waiting for updates about when the power’s coming back on anymore. They expect you to help them get ready before the storm, keep them safe while it’s happening, and be there to support them after it’s over.

Actually, a recent Chartwell study found that more than two-thirds of utility customers believe their providers should play a role in helping communities both prepare for and recover from these major weather events. So, it’s clear — customers want more than outage alerts. They’re looking for guidance, reassurance, and a sense that their utility is right there with them through the whole process.

Here’s Lem again, breaking down some crisis communication principles from the CDC that can help utilities rise to those expectations.

Crisis Communication Principles That Build Trust and Credibility

Lem: 

The first key principle that the CDC has suggested is that when a crisis hits, being forced to share information can make a big difference, and speed does matter. However, speed should not come at the cost of accuracy. So you need to be right and make sure that the information you're sharing is accurate. A good way to do that is by letting your customers know what you know and what you don't know, and also letting them know what you're doing to fill in the gaps.

Another key principle outlined by the CDC suggests that organizations should keep their messaging credible. Stay honest, especially during a crisis, even if that sometimes means you don't know yet and you're trying to figure things out.

The next principle outlined by the CDC is to express empathy and acknowledge what people are feeling, and that can go a long way in building true connections with the communities you serve.

The fifth principle is to promote action and let your customers know what they can do to stay safe. It shifts their mindset from being emotional to thinking more rationally and gives them a sense of control during these difficult times.

And the last principle outlined is to show respect, which can truly build trust, encourage cooperation, and strengthen community ties for the years to come.

Cali: 

During a crisis, people aren’t just looking for fast updates:  they’re looking for honesty, empathy, and clear guidance on what to do next. 

But one of the biggest challenges utilities face is keeping up with those expectations when storms start stacking up. A study from one of our partners found that 83% of customers expect an update within an hour of reporting an outage — and more than one in five want an update right away. That’s a lot of pressure to stay connected and responsive, especially when multiple events are happening at once.

At KUBRA, our Storm Center™ outage maps and Notifi^® alerts are built to help meet those needs — but what happens when storms overlap, and timelines get tight? Here’s Todd Clement with a view on what that really looks like in action.

Managing Overlapping Storms and Compressed Communication Timelines

Todd Clement:

The other thing that becomes apparent and touches back on what I mentioned earlier, where the messaging timeline gets compressed, is that we all know normally you have the prewarning phase, the actual events, some restorations going on, and then a post-situation kind of wrap-up message. 

But again, in this case, at least in Florida and some of these others, you had two or three of these events overlapping each other simultaneously. You might have restorations from the previous hurricane still ongoing while you're sending out warnings and notifications of the next incident, where Milton is going to hit soon.

That really overlaps the schedule. You're pushing these people to draft these messages, get them approved, have them ready, and get good data, which can be very hard when your territory is out of power, and you don't even have crews on-site in some of those situations. 

So again, the idea is that when you're in a situation like we had in 2004 with these compressed timelines, you have a lot less time to get that stuff together and get good information. It exposes gaps you might have in your playbook and things you need to do differently.

Cali:

Todd really highlights how quickly a communication plan can get stretched when you’re managing overlapping events. The normal phases of preparation, response, and recovery start to blur together, and that’s when the gaps in your playbook show up. This is why planning ahead and staying flexible are so important, and why having the right tools in place makes such a big difference.

From there, Todd shared a few best practices utilities can work on before storm season hits — like getting more customers signed up for outage notifications, and running realistic drills to make sure communication plans actually hold up under pressure.

Let’s hear his thoughts on that.

Preparing for the Next Storm: Enrollment, Drills, and Realistic Scenarios

Todd: 

Obviously, the first step is you always want to try to boost enrollment. You can leverage enrollment campaigns or do bulk enrollments. Many utilities today are doing bulk enrollments and simply saying, “Hey, if the clients ever gave us their phone number, we’re going to sign them up for outage notifications.” They’re not even asking, and that’s perfectly fine. We see so many folks doing that.

Now, it’s natural in the middle of a storm or an event to see a little boost in your organic growth, where enrollment is going up because people are wondering how to get a hold of you and check where things stand. But again, in a catastrophe, you don’t want to wait. You want those people to be getting your pre-event or pre-catastrophe, pre-storm notifications. You want them engaged from the beginning, not just when they’re going to be restored.

So again, you want to get those enrollment campaigns going. As we discussed, we saw 55% are running those simulations or drills today. Those can help reveal the gaps and make sure that everything’s covered and everybody understands their job. It’s a very complex system when we have these outages and these giant restorations.

But also, I would say, don’t forget to simulate the worst-case scenario. Sometimes we get comfortable and run happy-path scenarios. We do that too in our own testing, and we have to remember — this could be much worse. What happens when we really throw it at the fan, right?

Cali: 

You can hear how important it is to prepare for a storm before it hits. Getting customers enrolled, simulating worst-case scenarios, and making sure everyone knows their role all help ensure you’re ready when things don’t go as planned. 

In this final clip, Todd shares how scheduling messages in advance and running post-event debriefs can help utilities stay ahead of the curve and keep improving after every storm.

Building Long-Term Resilience Through Better Communication

Todd: 

Obviously, you want to leverage scheduled communications for out-of-band items. We saw that quite a bit during this. Our tool, and many others, allow you to set up communications to go out on a schedule. That means you can have the foresight to draft those messages ahead of time and have them ready if it does hit—or when it does hit. It doesn’t even have to hit; you don’t have to send it, but you can have it ready, loaded in the chamber, and ready to go.

That really helps cut down those situations where you have a compressed schedule and don’t have time to run everything through the full approval process. You can really get ahead of it.

And then, obviously, you should always run a debrief or lessons-learned session as soon as you can after the dust has settled a bit. You want to preserve knowledge and the accuracy of what actually happened and identify what you really need to do. What are the low-hanging fruit, as it were, for next time around?

Cali: 

When you take the time to prepare and then reflect afterwards, you’re not just reacting to storms as they happen. You’re building resilience and setting yourself up to respond even more effectively the next time around.

And that really sums up what we’ve talked about today: the storms are getting stronger, customer expectations are getting higher, and utilities need to be ready with clear communication, fast updates, and plans that hold up under pressure. Whether it’s boosting enrollment, simulating worst-case scenarios, or scheduling messages in advance, the steps you take now will make a big difference in how you handle the 2025 storm season.

That’s going to wrap up today’s episode of Experience Better. If you’d like to hear the full webinar — where we dig even deeper into the data and share more best practices to help you get ready for future storm seasons — we’ll drop a link in the podcast description. You can also find it anytime under the Resources section on KUBRA.com.