The statewide Mutual Aid Task Force completed its work on a new framework for mutual aid during emergencies and major outages. The new updates to the mutual aid plan and agreement are the first since 2019 and are the culmination of a process that began in May, when a task force of cooperative CEOs and operations directors reviewed the plan.

The task force was formed to develop a practical, collaborative framework to coordinate mutual aid more quickly and strategically. Cooperation among co-ops is one of the seven cooperative principles, and mutual aid among electric co-ops in times of need is a long-standing tradition in Indiana. Mutual aid is coordinated by Indiana Electric Cooperatives and made possible by line crews’ willingness to show up for one another when support is needed.

One key change to the plan is an increased investment from IEC in its National Outages and Mutual Aid (NOMA) map, which provides real-time outage updates and streamlines aid requests.

The updated plan was officially approved at the Oct. 6 IEC Managers’ Association Meeting and was shared at IEC’s October board meeting. The plan was also shared at the fall meeting of the operations and engineering professional section.

Members of the Mutual Aid Task Force were:

• Jeff Dickerson, Boone Power
• Jason Clemmons, Clark County REMC
• Colt Burnau, Heartland REMC
• Greg Ternet, Hendricks Power Cooperative
• Mark McKinney, Jackson County REMC
• Tommy Nance, NineStar Connect
• Steve Seibert, Southern Indiana Power
• Shane Smith, UDWI REMC
• Leslie Beard, WIN Energy REMC