Kean Students Create a New Utility Outage Reporting App, inspired by the Effects of Hurricane Sandy

Mobile App lets users see outages in their area; offers estimates of repair times

For everyone affected by Hurricane Sandy last year, one of the most challenging aspects of the power outage was the lack of information.  Questions seemed unending, and created anxiety in the public:  Did the utility companies really know about all homes and businesses without power? Why were various trucks coming to investigate the problems – and then driving off again?  Where was news about how long repairs would take?  How was it possible to get information without access to TV, radio or internet?

Inspired by this experience, professors at Kean University in Union, NJ, challenged their students to create a way to aid the public in a situation like Sandy, with widespread power outages. Could the students design something that would allow the public to get necessary information to manage their expectations in a disaster? As cell phones were often the only means of communication in the aftermath of Sandy, a mobile device app seemed the ideal platform for addressing these issues.  

Students Jason Bonafide and Chris Lewis, aided by professors Dr. James Drylie and Dr. Patricia Morreale, took on the task in the months after Sandy. Combining Dr. Drylie’s expertise in public safety with Dr. Morreale’s prior work on real-time systems design, the Computer Science students embarked on creating an app that the public could use to easily reach utility companies to report service disruptions, as well as to learn when repair was expected.  To do this, they needed first to learn the logistics of utility repair.

Though the process may appear mysterious and frustrating to those without power and awaiting repair, there is a standard procedure. The initial step in getting an outage fixed is to register the problem and have it assessed by a utility worker. At this time, a ticket is created that is prioritized for repair scheduling.  This scheduling is based on several factors: severity of the damage in respect to how many have lost power (one house, a street, whole neighborhood), who is affected (residences, businesses, hospitals, schools, nursing homes), and if any additional resources would be needed (manpower, new utility poles, tree removal) before repair could be attempted.  Based on these criteria, an order is determined, with life-preserving medical needs getting first priority for repair, and other critical support services following.  Often residences, schools and businesses are placed at the end of the list. Thus, a downed wire affecting one residence would receive lower repair priority than a wire a few streets away that impacted a nursing home and police station.

Once armed with this information, the students were able to figure out what they needed their app to do.  They designed the app (with a working title of “Crowdsourcing for Public Safety”) so that users can report an outage using GPS – and even snap a photo of the service problem with their phone - and send it to the utility company. The user receives confirmation that the issue has been received, and the outage report is then added to a repair database.  Users can check the database to ensure that a problem has been registered and see when repair is expected.

Bonafide and Lewis were joined by students Allan Goncalves and Carlos Silva, who are continuing the development of the project this summer.  A prototype was used by a group of Kean Students in May, who used the app to test the photo reporting process.  The overwhelmingly positive feedback received is being incorporated into the continued development of the app.  When completed, the app will be free for Android smartphone users, and may be adopted for use on other smartphone platforms, such as Apple iOS.  First Energy, the parent company of JCP&L, has been contacted and offered a demo.

By taking inspiration from the worst of Sandy - the power outage - and combining it with the best - neighbors coming together and crowdsourcing information - the students and faculty of Kean have created a service that will allow the public to have information and know what to expect from utilities in another power outage.  Let’s hope it is on all our mobile phones before we need it next.