Others Getting Power Back & You’re Still in The Dark? Here’s Why

I have family in the linesman trade and it's something I always here people complaining about. Why is it that the people down the road have had there power restored for hours and I'm still sitting here in the dark? It's just not fair! Well, actually it is. Sometimes that's just the way the cookie crumbles because of the way the grids in our areas are set up.

For example, depending on how rural or urban your area is, your neighbor could actually be on an entire separate grid than you depending on where the split or cutoff is. Let's then pretend that after a major storm, your neighbor only needed a transformer reset to bring back power, however, your power outage is being caused by a tree down on the lines 3 miles away. In this case, your neighbor is likely to receive power back much sooner than you, especially if your two structures don't share in the same grid.

Additionally, you will most likely notice higher population areas getting power back sooner than you. Again, just something you have to deal with, and there's actually really good reason for it. What do we commonly find in higher population areas? Police stations, fire station, hospitals, nursing home and other super-critical places that are top of the list when it comes to getting power restored.

The best thing you can do, even if you think the power company knows about your outage anyway, it to call the automated service line for your power company and report your outage. There is always a slight chance that your home is the only one that's out due to something with your particular service lines. Never assume that someone else has called to report it!

And last but not least, just be patient. I know that is literally the hardest part about not having power. As a matter of fact, that's why we bought and had our home wired for a generator. Because I'm not patient.

Just know that the linesman and women are out there working as hard as they can to get power restored. You may not agree with the order of road or towns they're working through because they're not yours, but rest assured, they know exactly what they're doing and they WILL get to you. I promise.

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