Thanks to the arrival of COVID-19, last year at CREC was unique and as mentioned before, sometimes a challenge! Contributing to the chaos was a record-breaking hurricane season, intense heat waves, lightning storms that sparked wildfires, and other inclement weather concerns. 

What do all these weather phenomena have in common? Unfortunately, they all had the potential to result in power outages. Here in the U.S., we are fortunate to have an advanced power grid in place. Power transmission and distribution is reliable in our country, and CREC is proud to deliver the electricity you depend on each day. Excluding outage times attributed to major weather or other catastrophic events, electricity consumers in our country overall typically experience only about two hours of total power interruptions per year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). When outages due to major events are taken into consideration, the EIA reports the total outage time at six hours a year. 

So what happens on our end when your power goes out? Rest assured CREC crews swing into action in a safe and efficient manner to ensure your power is restored. But as to how long that takes depends on several factors: 

1. The extent of the storm’s destruction
2. The number of outages 

How long it takes for our crews to safely access the storm-damaged areas. We are careful to follow standard restoration procedures to ensure safety and to get the job done right by: 

• Assessing damage to utility equipment.
• Addressing immediate safety risks, including downed power lines.
• Ensuring that essential public health and safety facilities are operational.
• Prioritizing repairs that will restore power to the number of people first.
• Evaluating power plants for damage and restore them to working order.
• Repairing transmission lines that carry power to large areas.
• Assessing and repairing (in this order) substations, distribution lines, and service lines to properties. 

CREC understands that it can be frustrating when your power goes out unexpectedly, and please know that we appreciate your patience during outages. Know that in the event of an outage, we are working hard to restore it as safely and efficiently as possible, day and night.