Customer Services > When The Power Goes Off
Excerpted from the February, 2007 Customer Newsletter
How to cope with long power outages
Can anything be more inconvenient than the loss of power for days or weeks?
Probably not. But it is still very much a possibility, as folks in the
central part of the state now know. Bad weather is usually the blame
for long power outages and extreme temperatures can make being without
power unbearable or deadly. Everyone should have an emergency plan of
action to protect themselves, their property and businesses when the
power is out for days or weeks. The customers of Northeast Power
have been lucky the last two years to miss the worst of the storms, but
our day will come when most of our lines are torn down by ice and wind,
in fact it could still happen this year…. No one ever knows. For
family members that are elderly or require medical attention, perhaps
the best plan is to leave the area if possible and move in with family
or check into a hotel. Customers often are concerned with refrigerators
and freezers, which usually are fine for days if the doors are kept closed.
Refrigerated goods are much less a concern in winter temperatures than
during summer. If repairs take longer than a couple of days, utilities
will typically make announcements through the media about the progress
in restoring power. You might imagine that the phone lines stay overwhelmed
as people either report outages or make inquiries. If the weather is
bitter cold then water pipes must be a concern to address, as is water
for livestock. Portable generators can provide a minimum amount of emergency
power to typically run one appliance and a light or two. It is usually
expensive to get a generator large enough run any form of heat. Customers
are reminded that they must hire an electrician to install a double throw
safety switch if they want to hook a generator into the home’s
wiring. A generator improperly connected into the home’s wiring
can feed out onto the electric lines and be deadly to our linemen out
working. Of course stand-alone generators that are not connected to the
home’s wiring do not present this concern. Most really wide spread
and long outages are caused by weather however, severe outages can be
caused by failures in equipment, materials, or human error and these
too can happen at anytime.
You should know that utility personnel are on duty around
the clock when major outages strike. Our entire focus is to restore service
as quickly and as safely as we can. Our employees have many year’s
experience and know the standard protocols for restoring power. The main
high voltage lines and substations must work or no one in the area served
by that substation has power. This work takes priority over distribution
feeders out of the subs. Once work starts on the distribution feeders then
the priority is how to get the most number of people back on the quickest.
Isolated customers at the ends of lines will typically be out of power
the longest. We do not make individual decisions about restoring power.
Everyone is important and we try to get as many back in service as fast
as possible. Our crews work very long days with very little rest. Our control
center is manned 24 hours a day when a big storm strikes. If need be crews
will be brought in from other areas to help, just as we sent crews west.
Everything humanly possible will be done to get the lights back on, but
each customer is ultimately responsible for their own individual situation
and must make their own decisions regarding their comfort and safety.