Simulation training equips utility operators with the skills they need to handle heavy equipment disaster relief with greater safety and efficiency. As natural disasters present the largest risk for critical infrastructure, faster and better training can make a difference. Simulation training improves safety, accelerates onboarding, supports retention, and helps ensure year-round readiness.
How Does Simulation Training Reduce Safety Risks for Disaster Recovery Operations?
Can Simulation Training Prepare Operators for Bad Weather During Disaster Relief Efforts?
How Can Simulation Speed Up Heavy Equipment Disaster Relief Training?
How Does Simulation Allow for Year-Round Infrastructure Repair Training?
Can Simulation Help Train Operators for Different Pieces of Natural Disaster Equipment?
Natural disasters and extreme weather events are occurring more frequently and with greater intensity. In 2024, there were 27 individual weather and climate disasters in the United States alone, resulting in at least $1B in damages each. In fact, just removing hazardous natural disaster debris can cost between $250 to $500 per ton.
These disasters have sharply increased demand for utility and heavy equipment operators to perform heavy equipment disaster relief, as their critical work reestablishing utilities and communications is an essential part of recovery. Unfortunately, the increase in demand is occurring during a crippling labor shortage. 70% of equipment operators are over the age of 50, and analysts estimate that approximately 40% of operators will retire by 2035. The U.S. Department of Labor forecasts a need for over 150,000 new heavy equipment operators over the next decade—and that’s just in the United States. Many other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, face similar shortages.
To help alleviate the problems of the labor shortage, utility companies will need to do more with what they have to reduce the human toll and financial costs of these persistent disasters. In that effort, simulation training is an unmistakable asset. Using simulation training, utility companies can better prepare their operators to work in challenging conditions, increase operator safety during and after training, and upskill operators on new equipment to meet the unique needs of each heavy equipment disaster relief operation.
Training for a disaster response poses significant challenges. To start with, post-disaster conditions can be dangerous, but training novice operators on real equipment under similar conditions creates its own safety risks. This creates something of a catch-22: operators need to gain the experience somehow—in order to feel safe when they’re called up to help—but giving them that training is dangerous in and of itself.
Fortunately, simulation helps to address this. With a good simulation training system, operators can sense the tires of their machine slipping on slushy snow and suffer the low visibility that comes with intense storms. Gary James, a 25-year veteran heavy equipment operator, knows just how important this experience can be. He said that, “Simulation training for me provides the ability to practice a high-risk scenario or get into a dangerous situation without worrying about the dangers.”
By hopping on a simulator, novice operators can train on natural disaster equipment in total safety and with confidence. They can experiment, push the limits of their machine, and experience how different factors affect the equipment. When later confronted by these conditions in a true disaster response situation, the operators will have familiarity and be better able to compensate for these impediments. As a result, safety during training and disaster recovery efforts is improved.
When a disaster strikes, each minute that passes could deteriorate the situation further and put the community at greater risk. Disaster recovery planning for communications and critical infrastructure makes a difference during this critical time. Suffice it to say, the disaster response cannot wait for a clear, sunny day to begin. Furthermore, operators often cannot predict what the conditions will be like when they arrive at the disaster site. Fortunately, simulation training allows instructors to train operators to work in all weather conditions.
During a simulation training exercise, instructors can modify the weather conditions at will to expose novice operators to different threats. Clear skies can shift to torrential rain or white-out blizzard conditions on the fly. Instructors have a wide range of weather patterns that they can inject into an exercise, including:
- Fog
- Wind
- Rain
- Snow
- Cloud cover
- Wind speed
- Wind direction
The fog, wind, rain, and snow weather settings reduce visibility and depth perception, helping operators develop their situational awareness at times when that awareness is impacted. The wind speed and direction settings, by contrast, help teach operators how the machine reacts to the wind in unpredictable ways. The immediacy of the inclement weather is key to effective training. In the real world, weather changes can happen suddenly, and operators must be prepared for that possibility. James explained, “Nobody’s going to call me and say, ‘Hey Gary, in five minutes it’s going to gust.’ It just gusts and I have to deal with it.” So, the surprise itself can be a critical component of the training.
Exposure is one thing, but repeated exposure is necessary for building the right skills and solidifying muscle memory. This is where simulation training can again provide significant benefits, and where it can become a useful component of infrastructure disaster recovery planning efforts. Rather than waiting for suitable weather to train operators, or spending time setting up an exercise in the field, trainers can simply push “reset” and begin the exercise again. This saves valuable time and allows operators to gain necessary skills quickly. According to some, simulation training can speed up training times by more than 50%.
Trainers can also pause a simulation and open a discussion on how best to approach the problem given the weather. They are also able to view key metrics to evaluate an operator’s performance and how it evolves over time, allowing them to quickly identify and correct mistakes. Taken as a whole, these benefits allow trainers to bring new recruits up to speed much faster than they could by training them on real equipment alone.
Utilities projects naturally slow during the winter months when weather conditions pose greater risks to operators, but disasters have no off-season. By regularly training on equipment, operators maintain muscle memory and operational precision, ensuring smooth coordination and quick response times when real-world projects or emergencies arise.
Simulation training offers operators the opportunity to train on equipment in a safe environment when they would otherwise be idle. This ensures that when a disaster does occur, they will not need to reacclimate to the equipment. Disaster response is a high-intensity, high-risk, high-stakes job, and there is no time to waste warming up.
What equipment do cities need to prepare for natural disasters? The answer depends a lot on the types of disasters they’ll encounter. Conditions on the ground following a disaster may call for different responses. A hurricane may litter the streets with debris, fallen trees, and rubble. In contrast, a major earthquake may collapse entire structures, blocking critical access routes with concrete and steel. Both situations require heavy equipment to restore order, but they call for different equipment and different numbers of each machine. To effectively carry out heavy equipment disaster relief, you need to have enough operators trained on the right equipment for the situation. This is where simulation training shines.
Typically, it is a challenge for operators to find the time to train on a new piece of equipment. It’s also hard for companies to make equipment available for training in the first place. Utility companies deploy their heavy equipment for revenue-generating activities as often as possible, so upskilling on real equipment requires utility companies to sacrifice productivity, creating friction between training and operational needs.
This is not a concern with simulation training. Operators seeking to train on a new machine can do so during downtime. Some training packs can also be self-guided, allowing an operator to learn fundamental skills even without an instructor present. Used strategically, this allows a utility company to make their operators as multi-faceted as possible. When a disaster strikes, the utility company has more than a handful of excavator operators and crane operators to draw from. Instead, they have a pool of highly skilled and adaptable heavy equipment operators ready to be deployed to the machines most needed for the response.
Investing in your operators’ success by expanding their skillset also improves retention rates. Operators can grow their careers by training and gaining experience on new equipment. James calls these multi-skilled heavy equipment operators “unicorns” and stresses how valuable this can be to their career. He said, “As an employer, I ask them to tell me the money. Tell me the truck color you want. Whatever you need. That’s where you would like to get yourself as an operator—to become a unicorn.”
Likewise, utility companies benefit from operators who can jump from one machine to the next depending on the needs of the job. James explained, “If I had an operator that could get out of the excavator and get into the dozer, now I have one payroll covering two scopes of work.”
The best employer-employee relationships are mutually beneficial. Simulation training enables utility companies to build up the value of each operator, thereby increasing the value of the whole company. In the face of an ongoing labor shortage, simulation training both onboards new operators faster and helps retain the operators you already have.
Safety is always a concern whenever operating heavy equipment, but the risks grow all the more serious in a disaster response situation. The safety of operators, first responders, and the community at large are on the line, so prepare your crews for the worst. Simulation training can deliver the essential exposure to disaster conditions that significantly reduce risk for all those involved.
Want to learn more about how simulation training can support disaster response? Watch our on-demand webinar, Disaster Preparedness for Utility Operators: Simulation Training for Real-World Scenarios.
