Hurricane Outage Repair FAQ
PrintNaturally, when a major storm or hurricane takes out power across a large area, our members have many questions about power restoration and safety.
Below, we provide answers to the most common questions we get about restoring power after a hurricane.
Unfortunately, no one can accurately answer this question. The answer isn’t simple and we don’t want to mislead you by guessing. When damage is extensive, making repairs is like peeling an onion. As crews make repairs, they often find other problems which must be fixed before the lights can come back on. Our goal is to restore power as quickly as possible while protecting the safety of our members and crews.
Never touch downed power lines. Don’t risk your life by moving lines or anything entangled in the lines. If you see a downed line, call PRECO at 800-282-3824 and call 911 immediately.
After a hurricane, power could be off for days or even longer. If you are dependent on electric-powered medical equipment and have no power backup system, consider relocating until power is restored.
Power restoration begins at our substations, where we receive power from the statewide grid, and is systematically carried outward to the end of our power lines. Crews may need to repair another location before your section of the power lines will work again. Crews are working, even if you don’t see them in your area yet.
Sometimes a natural disaster brings down all forms of telecommunications. Also, it’s physically impossible to answer every call if hundreds of people are trying to call at the same time, so we have several communication options to update you. For the latest storm and repair information:
- Visit our website at www.preco.coop
- Like PRECO’s Facebook page: Peace River Electric Cooperative, Inc.
- Follow @PeaceRiverEC on Twitter
- View our online Outage Map at http://outage.preco.coop
- Update your phone number and email address with us before the storm, in case we need to contact you