Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Starting on Wednesday and continuing over the next several days, weather dependent, New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG) is set to conduct vegetation surveillance work with the use of helicopters.
Amherst Police are notifying residents of the planned and authorized activity, as these helicopters are expected to be low-flying, at times, across the region.
NYSEG spokesperson Mike Baggerman says these types of patrols are usually done following any kind of storm event.
"The safety and reliability of the grid is among the top priorities for NYSEG. Inspections are critical to identifying damage or potential hazards, and by identifying and addressing potential issues before they lead to failures, we can ensure the consistent delivery of electricity to homes and businesses," said Baggerman in an interview with WBEN.
"What we do is we have helicopters, and during our most recent storm last week in Western New York, we saw more than 9,000 customers that were affected. So we use these aerial patrols following storms to look for threats to the lines that may have occurred since the storm, or were previously inaccessible during restoration efforts. For example, we're looking for trees that were uprooted since the storm that may not at the time have triggered an outage, but could trigger an outage if it's not addressed. And we're also looking for things like broken cross arms on our poles, loose insulators, downed wires."
For NYSEG, these patrols are about ensuring the reliability of the grid for everyone the utility company services.
"NYSEG covers 40% of Upstate New York, and we regularly do these to make sure that there's not uprooted trees or any kind of limbs that are down on our wires, we're looking for downed wires. It's just one of the many ways that we inspect it," Baggerman said.
These aerial patrols are utilized throughout the year to regularly examine vegetation.
"We inspect our lines with this infrared technology as well. We also conduct aerial inspections of our transmission line each year. So this is just one of the many tools in our tool belt to make sure that we have a reliable grid for New Yorkers," Baggerman added. "A lot of stuff that happens behind the scenes that people might not think about."
The helicopter typically fly lower that many traditionally in the sky so surveyers can get a relatively close look at the lines to conduct the visual and infrared inspections of the poles.
However, it's not always helicopters that companies like NYSEG are relying on to conduct these inspections.
"We have been utilizing drones for the last few years to inspect transmission lines. The drones use high resolution cameras to capture detailed images of the grid," Baggerman noted. "Last year, we inspected more than 12,000 structures across our entire service area using those drones. So yes, we use helicopters, but we also use drones to get in places that would be tougher to access."
NYSEG's patrol runs with helicopters will continue through Saturday, Jan. 24.