LibreYou rolled in from three states away. Hand the host utility the record its paperwork runs on.
Every damaged pole, transformer and span shot before you touch it and after it's restored, stamped with GPS and time. Shoot with the towers down, and send the host utility's storm coordinator a link at the end of every shift.
A storm assignment, documented from roll-in to release
Roll-in, restoration, release. The host utility's paperwork asks for it in this order, and so does your invoice.
Roll-in
- Trucks and equipment as they leave the yard — condition before the trip
- Arrival and check-in at the staging area
- The crew roster and the work assignment, photographed
- The circuit or feeder you were given and the first damage location
- Voice-caption the assignment so the report reads it back
Restoration
- Each damaged asset before you touch it — pole, crossarm, transformer, span
- The pole tag in frame, or the pole number said as a voice caption
- Hazards and anything the next crew needs to know, shot where they are
- Work in progress: pole set, framed, conductor re-strung
- The restored location, wide, clear of the right-of-way
Release
- Final condition at the last location of the assignment
- Trucks and equipment on departure — damage dated to the job
- Tap Generate: the day's PDF, every photo stamped with GPS and time
- Share the link with the host utility's storm coordinator
- Export everything for your own invoice and the mutual aid paperwork
The restoration takes a week. The paperwork takes months.
Mutual aid crews arrive, work sixteen-hour days on a system they've never seen, and leave. What stays behind is a stack of tally sheets and a few thousand photos on phones that went home with them, and that's what the host utility's reimbursement and the visiting crew's invoice both get rebuilt from. The missing piece is almost always location: which pole, which span, which feeder. FEMA's Public Assistance guide asks for a specific location, an address or GPS coordinates, for every impacted site, and the APPA mutual aid playbook suggests pre- and post-restoration photos in its damage and restoration templates. LibreCam gives each circuit or feeder its own project and stamps every photo with GPS and time as it's taken, so a damaged pole and its restored replacement land next to each other with the coordinates attached. Crews shoot with the cell network down and the uploads sync when coverage returns. Visiting linemen add photos through guest access without an account, and the host utility follows the assignment from one link you revoke at release. This page is about restoring the grid; for insurance claims on homes and roofs after the same storm, see storm damage.
Same 40 locations. Two very different reimbursement packets.
"Which pole was this?"
Each foreman keeps a paper tally and a phone full of photos. At release the host utility gets the tallies and a shared drive of images with no locations, and its storm team spends weeks matching photos to work orders. The utility's own field apps license by named user, and a forty-person convoy that arrived yesterday doesn't have accounts.
Feeder 12 — Day 3, 41 locations
Every location before and after, GPS and time on each photo, pole numbers in voice captions, sorted by feeder. The storm coordinator opened the link at the end of each shift, and the export went to the contractor's billing the day the crew was released.
Built for mutual aid crews and the utilities that host them
GPS and time on every photo
Coordinates, time and weather tag themselves. The location question that slows every reimbursement packet is answered on the photo.
Works with the towers down
After a major storm the cell network is often the first thing to go. Photos, voice captions and checklists capture offline and sync when service comes back.
Visiting crews shoot without an account
Guest access and upload links let a lineman who arrived last night add photos to the right feeder today. No account, no app setup, no license to request.
A project per circuit or feeder
Every location lands under the circuit it's on. Search a pole number or an address and the before, the after and the crew that did it are there.
The day's report in 2 taps
Select the shift, tap Generate. Every location before and after, stamped and captioned, ready for the host utility's daily package.
The host utility opens a link
The storm coordinator sees each shift's work in a browser, with no app. See who has opened it, and revoke it the day the crew is released.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. LibreCam doesn't submit, certify or calculate anything for FEMA, the host utility or a mutual aid agreement. It produces the photo record those filings draw on — every location before and after, with GPS and time — as a PDF, a share link or a full-resolution export.
Yes. Share the assignment link at check-in and the storm coordinator sees each location arrive as it's shot. You can see who has opened it and revoke it at release.
Yes. Photos, voice captions and checklists capture with zero signal and queue on the phone. They sync when coverage comes back, resuming where they stopped instead of starting over.
Yes. The foreman sets up the assignment, and crew members either join the team or add photos from an upload link with no account. Nobody needs a license, so headcount on the convoy doesn't change anything.
No. The documentation duty sits with the contractor and the host utility, and LibreCam works the same for every hand on the crew. The union line crews page covers dispatch, job briefings and who keeps the record.
No. The utility's systems stay the system of record. LibreCam is the photo record crews carry in the field; it exports at full resolution, shares by link, and the built-in MCP and API let a utility pull photos and coordinates into its own tools.
Nothing. LibreCam is free for every crew member, the host utility's reviewers and the office that does the billing. The free plan is the product, not a trial.