Morgan DX

Please state your name for the court.

I’m Morgan Jacob.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

Before everything else, I’m Aunt Morgan to my niece, Audrey. I love spending time with her coloring, painting, drawing… She wants to be an artist. I see her less nowadays just ‘cause my work schedule makes it a bit difficult.

What do you do for work?

I work for Midlands Gas and Electric, or MG&E, as an Operations Support Supervisor.

What do you do for work?

I work for Midlands Gas and Electric, or MG&E, as an Operations Support Supervisor.

What brings you to court today?

I was working on January 1, 2026 when the Dip Fire started.

Before we continue, do you still work for MG&E?

Yes. I can’t just up and leave a job that keeps the lights on in my apartment. I’m here because I was subpoenaed to testify.

When did you start?

2011. It was my first job out of community college.

What kind of work did you do when you started?

I was on the “G” side – the gas side – and I was a beginner employee, which means I mostly just did whatever menial tasks I was given: reading meters and doing service turn-ons.

Did you enjoy this work?

Not necessarily, but I kept my head down. I’m reliable and I never argued with my supervisors. It was always “yes, and” and “no questions asked.”

Tell me about your first promotion.

It was 2016. They gave me my own service crew, and I ran it the way I’d always behaved at MG&E: “yes, and” and “no questions asked.” I guess something about that clicked for corporate, because I was promoted again in 2019. They had me coordinating gas service operations for all of Southern Midlands.

Is your current role also on the “gas side” of the company?

No. Around 2022, MG&E started losing a lot of their staff on the electric side of the company, so my boss moved me over there, and that came with a promotion to Operations Support Supervisor

Had you ever worked on the electric side of the company before?

No. I was confused as to why they moved me, but I wasn’t about to start saying “no,” especially not to a promotion. “No” never got me anywhere at MG&E.

What do you do now as Operations Support Supervisor?

It’s mostly office work focused on the electrical field crews and operations.

Did you have any specialized training before starting this position?

I had a two-week orientation within the company and was given a binder with some information about how to run operations.

What was in that binder?

Some forms, some templates, but most importantly: the Distribution and Operations Maintenance Manual. We call it the Manual. I used to follow it to a T, but that changed after the execs rolled out the Operational Efficiency Initiative.

What’s the Operational Efficiency Initiative?

It was this modernization program that also cut costs. Patrol frequency went down, and so did personnel. Less people on the field meant they could phase out in-person monitoring for remote monitoring, which happened to be a lot cheaper.

What is MG&E’s remote monitoring system called?

The main one is called SCADA. It allows us to read if there’s any electrical faults without actually having to send a person on site to determine that.

Would you recognize a copy of it if I were to show you one?

Of course. I’ve got a copy on my desk. Audrey got a bit of chartreuse oil paint on the backside cover, but it’s there.

What have I just handed you?

This is a copy of the Distribution and Operations Maintenance Manual.

Tell us about this version of the Manual.

This is the version I was working off of on January 1, 2026. It’s pretty liberal about what operators can put on the deferred list.

What’s the “deferred list”?

When we get an alert about an issue, we can put it on the deferred list. It just means we can deal with it the next day or put it off until it’s causing a bigger problem. Sometimes with the deferred list, the problem goes away on its own, so we never even check. 

Are you familiar with which one I’m talking about?

Yes

Can you describe that location?

It’s on Dip Road, which is this dark, winding street that runs right through the center of Rapid River Valley.

On January 1, 2026, did you receive any alarms or reports about Pole #4742?

Yeah. At around 2:10 a.m., I got a call from local law enforcement. The officer told me that a car collided into Pole #4742 and that it was visibly leaning.

Does the Manual tell you what to do in this sort of situation?

Yeah, right here. It says, “Where the report indicates displacement of a pole or equipment, a leaning pole, or a compromised conductor or attachment, the Coordinator shall dispatch a field resource for verification.”

Is that what you did?

Well, technically…

What do you mean you “technically” dispatched a field resource?

I mean it depends on what you consider a “field resource,” right? I checked SCADA – or should I say I dispatched SCADA.

What do you mean by that?

I checked SCADA to verify any damage to the electrical components pole. SCADA lets us know if a circuit is broken, and since it didn’t, I deferred the report.

Can SCADA verify if a pole is displaced?

No.

Can a pole become displaced without tripping your SCADA system?

Yeah, if a pole is leaning but it’s still technically functional, SCADA doesn’t register anything.

When you got that call from law enforcement, did you send an operator out to verify if the pole was visibly leaning?

No. We only had one operator that night for the entire region, and since it was a holiday, they would’ve been paid triple overtime for every pole they checked. I figured since SCADA hadn’t been tripped, there was no reason to send someone out. I doubted that the company wanted to pay triple overtime if it was nothing.

To your knowledge, did anyone at MG&E verify whether the pole was leaning?

No.

Is that the last you heard about issues with Pole #4742 that night?

Well, not exactly. At 3:30 a.m., the environmental monitoring panel started sending alerts.

What is the environmental monitoring panel?

It’s our fire-weather and sensor system, we call it EMS. It tracks temperature and air quality at points along our circuits.

What did it tell you that night?

It sent me two readings: temperature exceedance and particulate exceedance near Pole #4742.

What do those readings mean?

It means the area around the sensor was getting hot, and there were a lot of foreign particles in the air.

What does the Manual tell you to do in this situation?

Here, it says: “Coordinator shall dispatch a field resource for verification.”

Did you send a person out when you got that EMS warning?

No. I figured it was a false alarm and that the values were wrong.

Had the values stabilized?

No… after four minutes they had actually worsened.

When the values started worsening, did you send someone out?

Not until it was too late.

Did you know if there was anyone available to send out?

Well, Finley offered.

Who’s Finley?

Finley Gray, our field operator. They texted me once the EMS values worsened.

What have I just handed you?

This is a copy of my texts with Finley Gray on January 1, 2026 after the EMS panel sent out its alerts.

Ms. Jacob, what does Mx. Gray say in these messages?

Right here. They say they saw the EMS report and offered to check it out. They were only 15 minutes away.

What did you say?

I said no. Finley offered again, and I told them that if they wanted to go out, they could do it on their own dime. Like I said, triple overtime is a lot to shell out.

Ms. Jacob, why didn’t you send your field operator out on January 1, 2026?

I mean, I know the pole had been hit, and I know the alarms were going off, but I just got into the habit of relying on SCADA and not making a fuss.

Why?

I guess it’s like I said before, I had always kept my head down at MG&E, especially since the Efficiency Initiative, and that’s how I made it to where I am today.