SPIDI Technologies, LLC. Home of the SPIA Index.

Since December 2000, the state of Oklahoma has been devastated by at least eight major ice storms, culminating in December 2007 with the worst power outages related to an ice storm event in Oklahoma history (640,000 electric utility customers without power at the height of the December 8-11 ice storm; some electric services were not restored to individual homes and business until Christmas Day).

The Sperry-Piltz Ice Accumulation Index, created by Sidney Sperry of the Oklahoma Association of Electric Cooperatives and Steven Piltz and his team of meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in Tulsa, OK, incorporates various radial ice accumulation measurements, wind speed and wind direction data, and temperature forecasts for an ice storm event period and assimilates the data into a "Potential Utility Damage Scale," much like the Enhanced Fujita Scale that measures the intensity and damage of tornadoes, or the Saffir-Simpson Scale, which measure the intensity and damage potential of approaching hurricanes and tropical storms.

Previous to the SPIA index, no such forward-looking ice accumulation damage index had ever been used to predict - days in advance - the potential damage to overhead utility systems due to ice storms.

The SPIA index was formally used by officials with the National Weather Service Tulsa office to predict the potential damage related to an ice storm event which hit areas of northeastern Oklahoma and northwestern and northern Arkansas in January 2009. NWS Tulsa officials conducted a series of "Winter Storm Webinars" to brief state, county and city emergency management officials in both Oklahoma and Arkansas, and also officials with electric utilities, telephone companies, cable companies, public service commissions and disaster-preparedness agencies such as the Red Cross and 2-1-1 Resources, plus area shelters, about the approaching storm and the impact that it was predicted to have on exposed overhead utility systems.

The success of the SPIA index presents a tremendous opportunity for disaster preparedness for many different public works agencies and entities, including but not limited to: public utilities, public schools, departments of transportations, county commissioners, state/county/municipal emergency managers and officials with FEMA and Homeland Security. Of course, electric and communication utilities are one of the prominent benefactors from the SPIA index, as exposed overhead utility lines are often decimated by large formations of storm-total ice accumulation.

A licensing agreement allows use of the SPIA index - free of charge - by public agencies to assist them in disaster preparedness. The index is also being evaluated for possible use by FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, as there exists the potential for use by the National Weather Service at all of its offices nationwide. The NWS is currently conducting "operational tests" of the index at four forecast offices in addition to the Tulsa office. These locations are: Amarillo and Fort Worth, TX; Norman, OK; and Little Rock, AR. Once tests are completed, the index could be implemented nationwide.

Special thanks is given to officials at the Oklahoma Climatological Survey office in Norman, OK, as they have assisted in research activities related to the development and testing of the index and the Potential Utility Damage Scale. These officials are: Dr. Kenneth Crawford, Director; Dr. Renee McPherson, Associate Director; Gary McManus, Assistant State Climatologist; and Mark Shafer, State Climatologist.