Every year as the hurricane season approaches, our teams take steps to ensure the safe and reliable delivery of natural gas to our customers. Along the Gulf Coast, we have assets and teams working both onshore and offshore.
Our teams prepare in multiple ways by reviewing and enhancing existing storm preparedness and response plans, applying lessons learned from previous years and hosting tabletop exercises. Those exercises, facilitated by our Security Operations Center, simulate a weather event and roles during an emergency and act out responses to a particular situation to ensure continued improvement.
Williams also has a dedicated Geographic Information System (GIS) team, which includes trained meteorologists who monitor weather-related events in real-time across our footprint in 26 states.
The Williams Security Operations Center, Safety Department, GIS teams and field operations work closely during weather events and share information using sources such as the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center. Our GIS team maintains an internal weather map that captures all states where Williams has operations and provides information about significant weather-related events, adding another layer to our monitoring capabilities.
In the event of extreme weather conditions, the safety of our employees and their families is our highest priority. Beyond operational integrity, we have robust plans and tools in place to alert employees if evacuation or other preparations are necessary.
A hurricane is a tropical cyclone with winds of 74 miles (119 kilometers) per hour or greater that is usually accompanied by rain, thunder, and lightning, and that sometimes moves into temperate latitudes. The word Hurricane has traditionally been used when naming storms occurring in the western Atlantic.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. To learn more about how to be prepared this hurricane season Ready.gov provides extensive helpful information and resources on how to prepare for a hurricane.