Flipping a light switch on or turning an appliance on and off is so quick and easy, most electricity consumers don’t think much about it. So, it can be difficult to grasp all the elements and mechanisms involved with getting power back on when there is an extended interruption of service from Broad River Electric Cooperative.
To help you understand what’s happening behind the scenes during one of those outages, here are 10 things you might not know about our restoration efforts:
1. We need you. When your power goes out, there is a chance we may not know about it, and no one has reported it. We rely on you to let us know.
2. Our employees might be affected too. Because Broad River Electric is locally owned and operated, our employees are a part of the community. When you’re without power, they might be too.
3. It’s a team effort. All Broad River Electric’s employees are part of the effort to get your power restored as soon as possible. Member services representatives are taking your calls. Engineers and field staff are surveying damage. Our vegetation management team is clearing hazards. Dispatchers are organizing crews. And communicators are keeping everyone informed of progress or potential dangers.
4. We assess the situation first. Every outage is different, and we don’t know how dangerous it is or what equipment might need to be replaced. We first need to see what happened, then figure out what materials we need and a plan for how to fix the problem(s) without compromising electric flow for the rest of our members.
5. Our priority is safety, then restoring the most members in the shortest time. Our crews focus on responding first to public safety issues and critical services. Then we complete work that impacts the largest number of people first.
6. Our employees face hazards. Besides working around high-voltage electricity, our crews are on alert for animals, weather, falling trees, and fast-moving cars. If you ever drive past one of our vehicles, please do so slowly.
7. Flickering lights are a good thing. Flickering lights are not outages. These “blinks” indicate our equipment worked and prevented a possible outage.
8. You need a backup plan. We do our best to help those who need it, but if you depend on electricity for life support purposes, you should have a backup plan.
9. Our employees have to plan and eat. If you see our trucks in a restaurant parking lot while your power is out, know that sometimes our employees huddle in a safe, common area to map out their plan for getting your power back on. Also, our crews work long hard hours during outages and need to take time for meals just like everyone else.
10. Sometimes it’s a waiting game. Our portion of the power grid is connected to other electric utilities. If our outage is due to an issue from their feed into our system, we must let them do their repairs.
“We do our best to avoid power disruptions, but from time to time, they are bound to happen,” says Cary Johnson, chief operating officer for Broad River Electric. “If the lights go out, we want our members to know that your co-op is working as quickly and safely as possible to get your lights back on.”
If you experience an outage, please let us know by reporting it through SmartHub, outage texting, or by calling (866) 266-7688.