A Note About Crew placements / Why Are Crews Moving Around?
We understand that there is some confusion about where crews are being sent and why power is not restored in areas where crews are working. Restoration starts by pinging meters electronically around a reported outage to gain a wider perspective of how large of an outage area exists; logging all outage reports into the system to account for each map location that has lost power and dispatching line crews immediately to areas of identified and confirmed outages. Though the co-op knows there are reported outages, the exact cause is not yet known.
Each situation is unique and field crews first must be investigators in determining where the problem is on the power line path. When there is severe damage from downed trees, field crews may not be in a position to directly drive to the problem area. At times they must drive around an outage area that can span several miles or walk a line for a mile or more to reach the outage cause.
This is a tough and very time-consuming task during the day, but at night in the dark this investigation becomes even more challenging. Though the member’s home may be near a roadway, if an outage occurs on a power line feed that is far from the residence, but has created an outage down the line, crews must look at fault indicators and cutouts on the line to determine the cause.
This process is what results in crews being moved to various different areas throughout the day. Please know, even if your power is still off, crews are hard at work downline fixing components that contribute to your individual outage. Also know—for the safety of crews as they work, these location listings are generalized. Outages are nested—your outage is still being worked on, even if your specific locality is not listed yet.
