“I am really proud of the way our team pulled together and got power restored to our customers,” said Tom Sydow, director of operations in Salina, who served as one of the storm managers. “Receiving the Emergency Response Award is a tribute to how willing our employees are to go above and beyond expectations.”

Technology and help from customers also played a role in restoring power efficiently.

“Customers using the 1-800-LIGHT-KS line to report outages probably trimmed a day off our restoration time,” Caroline Williams, vice president, customer care, said. The automated phone system answers up to 30,000 calls per hour and is networked to help map outage locations and send work orders directly to trucks in the field.

Another important initiative that enabled Westar Energy to recover from the storm so quickly was our tree-trimming program, for which the National Arbor Day Foundation again recognized us as a Tree Line USA Utility.

As spring gave way to summer and temperatures climbed, focus turned to our energy centers. “Jeffrey Energy Center, our largest, generated more than 16.7 million megawatt hours of electricity, exceeding all previous generation records by more than 1 million MWh.