4:35 am
Tue March 1, 2011

Raleigh Hosting Energy Crisis Workshop

Emergency officials are meeting today in Raleigh to plan for a possible energy disaster. The two-day event is being sponsored by the Department of Energy and includes representatives from 12 states across the southeast as well as Puerto Rico and The Virgin Islands. James Mercer of the Raleigh Emergency Management Office is coordinating the event.

"What the city is basically doing is reaching out to all of the major stakeholders and bringing those people to the table and sitting down, getting to know one another. Developing those partnerships before we get into an energy crisis or an energy disaster.”

Mercer says they’ll be going over a number of different disaster scenarios, like blackouts and petroleum shortages. They’ll be trying to identify vulnerabilities in their infrastructure.  The event will be held at the Raleigh Convention Center.