Omaha Public Power District earned Gold in the Emergency Management category of Chartwell’s Best Practices Awards for its response to a rare, once in 500 year ice event in 2025.
"Faced with hurricane force winds and three to five inches of ice coating energized infrastructure, OPPD managed one of the most significant system impacts in its history, affecting 132,000 customers. The utility’s response was grounded in a safety-first approach, supported by disciplined incident command, organizational agility, and a clear 'one voice' communications strategy to ensure consistency across all stakeholder interactions," Chartwell noted in a Linkedin post.
Throughout the event, OPPD maintained "a strong commitment to honest, frequent outage communications while prioritizing safety and sustaining round-the-clock restoration efforts. By aligning leadership, operations, and communications under a unified framework, the team was able to coordinate effectively under extreme conditions and maintain focus on restoring service as efficiently and safely as possible," Chartwell said.
"If you are a utility professional working to strengthen emergency management frameworks, improve cross functional coordination, and maintain clear customer communication during large scale events, OPPD’s approach offers a powerful example of resilience in action," Chartwell noted.
OPPD, a Nebraska public power utility, also received the Silver Outage Communications Award for its storm-centered estimated time of restoration (ETR) improvements.
"Facing unprecedented structural damage following a blizzard and windstorm in 2025, the utility focused its efforts on strengthening communication accuracy and expediency, ultimately improving its customers’ outage journey," Chartwell said.
OPPD has embraced a “progress over perfection” outage communications model, striving to achieve diligent storm preparation, disciplined messaging, cross‑department support, and multi-channel outreach to customers, Chartwell said.
