At D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, planning for major weather events starts about a week before the storm arrives.
Stephen Miller, the city’s chief technology officer, meets with his leadership team to begin the planning process. In the case of last weekend’s snow and ice storm, he considered what assets were underground, in the event they got damaged.
He thought about where staff should be located in order to respond as things popped up. It’s about the same process he follows on an ordinary day but on a much larger scale.
While other city leaders work to clear roads and neighborhoods, Miller’s team ensures the infrastructure needed to do it remains intact. Though it may largely go unnoticed — unless something goes wrong — the work keeps D.C. online during major storms.
“Everything’s connected to the internet, or everything is connected to telecom equipment, right?” Miller said Wednesday. “Whether it’s going to be life safety systems, those building systems to keep things warm, what they’re doing to watch TV. We want to make sure those systems are up and running.”
The group meets with D.C. Public Schools and the Department of General Services to figure out how to support those agencies to keep buildings running safely.
In addition to maintaining network connectivity, Miller said part of the job is getting buildings prepared for when people return to work. That, in part, means ensuring alarms are present and functional and anyone who needs to call 911 can do so.
“What’s at stake here is our support of public safety, snow command centers and other first responders that are working within the District,” said Jason Longenecker, associate chief technology officer. “We also ensure that our partner agencies, such as DCPS and DCPR, are getting the support they need to reopen when they’re ready.”
After the weekend’s storm, Longenecker said there “weren’t any major issues. There were some hiccups related to power that were reported, and our teams were very quick, within minutes, to respond.”
Some agency staffers even slept on cots in the office, while others stayed at nearby hotels to be close in the event they were needed.
Sometimes, they’re monitoring systems that run payroll and procurement. In other instances, they watch radio sites to ensure handheld communication devices can be used by workers in the field.
This week, they’ve been following systems that agencies such as the Department of Public Works use.
“They’re collecting data on where they’re going around the city,” Miller said. “We want to make sure those systems are up and running so we’re getting good data to come into them.”
One challenge, Miller said, is fiber-optic lines around the city that aren’t buried. So, the agency deployed technicians around the city to make sure any downed lines were easily accessible.
The city also has working relationships with AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, so if there’s an issue with a hard-line fiber network, there’s still a connectivity option.
Every hour, staff inform Miller on how city systems are operating. Every four hours, he’s briefing city leaders.
“This is all something we do every day,” he said. “We just go into an enhanced kind of posture.”
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