Unless the cause of an outage is obvious (like a car hitting a pole) we don’t know how long it will take to find the cause and make the repair until a crew can locate and assess it. During widespread outages, this is even more challenging. After severe storms, it can take a long time just to assess the extent of the damage. Above all, our priorities are in this order: first make it safe, assess the damage, and then restore service. We can only begin restoring power after we have an idea of the problems in the system.
CREC follows a hierarchy of repair to restore power to the most members at once – there are a few reasons for this besides just member count.
If you think of CREC’s electrical system like a network of roads, and those roads leading to your home are blocked, even if your driveway is clear, you won’t make it home. During an outage, problems can occur at any stage of the transmission or distribution system. If there is damage at both a substation and the line delivering power to your home, fixing the service line to your home first isn’t going to help, because the damage "upstream" -- at the substation -- will prevent power from reaching your home.
Often, the damage sustained at the service line level is the most time-consuming to repair. A crew might spend the same amount of time restoring power to a few members as it takes to restore power to hundreds of members.
Yes. CREC has a medical alert registry. When you register for this program, you are placed on a registry list, so every reasonable effort may be made to provide advance notice of a planned maintenance outage. The registry also helps prioritize service restoration when possible after an unexpected power disruption. It is always encouraged that members who are medically dependent on electricity have a backup plan in place (i.e., having a generator, being able to move to a shelter or a family member’s home who has power) if an outage is extensive, and the co-op is unable to quickly provide estimated times for restoration.
While CREC is currently in the process of upgrading its system, even the newest and best can’t overcome severe weather with winds at 50 mph or more. A great percentage of CREC’s service area is covered by mature trees, which the cooperative does its best to keep trimmed and away from our lines, however, we can only remove what is within our legal right-of-way. A storm with high winds can knock down plenty of trees, taking our lines and poles with them. Trees that are located well out of the right of way can still be blown into the lines.
Besides tree branches getting in the way of lines or taking them down during high winds, the next top culprit of outages are animals such as squirrels who chew power lines or get into substations and cause havoc – this happens more than you would think. Vehicle accidents are also sometimes an issue, cars and tractors occasionally hit poles or pull down overhead lines. These outages are especially dangerous because of the potential for an energized line to come in contact with a vehicle full of people.
The crew was likely there to perform a different job in the restoration process, such as a trouble-shooting crew looking for the cause of the outage so they can relay back to dispatch what equipment is needed to make the repairs – i.e., Will flaggers be needed? What about a tree crew? A repair crew will then be sent to the location with the necessary supplies, equipment, and linemen.
During a large outage, crews may arrive with the job of making things as safe as possible first – for members and our lineworkers – disconnecting power, assessing the situation, making safe downed wires, and so on, and then leaving to continue this process at another location where there is damage. The actual repair happens later by a different crew.