Forecasting Resilience: How Utilities Are Responding to Weather Risk

From hurricanes and wildfires to ice storms, heat waves, and flooding, severe weather is reshaping how utilities prepare for and respond to operational threats. In this panel discussion, utility leaders will share how they are using weather intelligence, predictive analytics, and operational data to strengthen readiness before an event, improve decision-making during active conditions, and refine models after restoration is complete.

 

Panelists will explore how weather-driven insights are influencing crew staging, asset risk identification, wildfire readiness, outage response, and post-event continuous improvement. Learn how utilities are moving from reactive response models to more proactive, data-informed resilience strategies in an era of growing weather volatility.

Moderated by: Jim Nowak, Senior Consultant, Chartwell, Inc. 

 

Jim Nowak is a seasoned utility industry executive with over 37 years of experience leading emergency management, outage restoration, and operational innovation. He has held senior roles at American Electric Power, ARCOS, and Tempest, and today serves as Senior Consultant at Chartwell, Chief Client Advocate at Crew Surge, and Partner/COO at TRE Solutions. Jim has co-chaired national industry groups for EEI and co-founded the Great Lakes Mutual Assistance Group, helping shape mutual aid and incident response practices across North America. He brings deep expertise in SaaS technology adoption, customer success, and resilience planning to enhance the reliability and safety of critical utility services.

 

Panelists: To Be Announced

 

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