Safety of personnel and the public will remain our highest priority. Restoration priorities include:

• Assessing the overall system and repairing transmission lines and substations that carry power from substations to the communities.

• Restoring power to key services essential to community safety, health and welfare - such as hospitals, police, fire, communications and water, sanitary and transportation providers.

• Making repairs to electrical facilities that will return service to the largest number of customers in the shortest period of time, then the next largest number and so on until power is returned to everyone.

Citizens Electric will provide service restoration updates on Facebook to keep everyone informed of our progress.

Citizens Electric’s prepay billing system reads your meter every night at midnight, calculates your usage, and charges accordingly around 10:30 a.m. daily.  

-  If the billing system cannot read your meter (like during an outage) it will estimate your usage based on previous days usage.  

-  For example, if you are normally charged an average of $5 a day, it will estimate your usage as $5 a day during the outage.  

-  Once you regain power, the billing system will read your meter with the correct KWH usage amount and credit your account back for any charges that may have been estimated as an overage. 

When the Power Goes Out . . .

Basic tips for keeping food safe:

1. Keep the refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible to maintain the cold temperature.
   • The refrigerator will keep food cold for about 4 hours if it is unopened.
   • A full freezer will keep the temperature for approximately 48 hours (24 hours if it is half full) if the door remains closed.
2. Buy dry or block ice to keep the refrigerator as cold as possible if the power is going to be out for a prolonged period of time. Fifty pounds of dry ice should keep an 18 cubic foot, fully stocked freezer cold for two days.
3. If you plan to eat refrigerated or frozen meat, poultry, fish, or eggs while they are still at safe temperatures, it is important that each item is thoroughly cooked to a safe minimum internal temperature to ensure that any foodborne bacteria that may be present are destroyed. However, if perishable food has been held at room temperature for 2 hours or more (or 1 hour if outdoor temperatures are above 90 º F) — discard it.

Once Power is Restored . . .

Determine the safety of your food:

1. If an appliance thermometer is kept in the freezer, check the temperature when the power comes back on. If the freezer thermometer reads 40° F or below, the food is safe and may be refrozen.
2. If a thermometer has not been kept in the freezer, check each package of food to determine its safety. You can’t rely on appearance or odor. If the food still contains ice crystals or is 40° F or below, it is safe to refreeze or cook.
3. If the power was out for no more than 4 hours, refrigerated food should be safe as long as the doors were kept closed. When the power comes back on, check the temperature in the refrigerator of the food. Discard any refrigerated perishable food (such as meat, poultry, seafood, milk, eggs, or leftovers) that has been at refrigerator temperatures above 40°F for 4 hours or more. Perishable foods with temperatures that are 45°F or below (measured with a food thermometer) should be safe, but should be cooked and consumed as soon as possible.

Perishable food such as meat, poultry, seafood, milk, and eggs that are not kept adequately refrigerated or frozen may cause illness if consumed, even when they are thoroughly cooked.

Source: fda.gov 

Restoration will depend in part on how many cities and counties are significantly impacted. Citizens Electric's service territory covers five counties and nearly 3,000 miles of line. If transmission lines need repair, it could take weeks, considering structure size and location. Resetting poles can be one of the most time-consuming stages in the restoration process.

Once service is restored, we make every effort to keep it on; however, as we repair other parts of our system, some interruptions may occur. If your lights come on then go off again, that's a sign that restoration crews are at work. For this reason, please wait before turning on your appliances or sensitive electronics when your lights first come back on.

No. The Citizens Electric serves to the line side of the meter loop. Repairs in your home or between the meter location and your home will need to be handled by your electrician. Most electricians who work in our area are familiar with our metering requirements. 

The below graphic depicts equipment owned by Citizens (in gold) and the member (in blue). If a storm damages any equipment owned by Citizens, we are responsible for repairs. If a storm damages any member-owned equipment, the member is responsible for repairs. Members are encouraged to have a licensed electrician make repairs to member-owned equipment. 

You should make plans now on how you could handle extended time without electric service. A portable generator may be an option; or you could make arrangements to relocate temporarily.

Call your local emergency management office if you or anyone you know has special needs in case of evacuation. Speak with your healthcare provider to make special arrangements in the event of planned outages.

Fuses or circuit breakers in your home could have tripped and halted power, tree limbs could have fallen on the line serving your home, fuses on the transformer that serves your home may have tripped or could be damaged, and the primary line feeding the transformer could be damaged. It's also possible that your neighbors are connected to a different main feeder power line or substation that had less severe damage.

No, Citizens Electric does not give preferential treatment.

It is contrary to our storm restoration plan and company policy to single out any individual for priority electric service restoration. Work is not assigned according to when members report their outage, where they live or the status of their account.

Our metering and substation monitoring systems alert us to power problems, although it is still important that members report individual outages.

We make an initial damage assessment of our system by observation. These initial observations help us understand the repairs that may need to be made to key facilities like transmission lines, substations and main power lines before we can begin the restoration process for members.

One of our top priorities will be to clear but leave on-site trees and debris that have damaged electrical equipment and are preventing service restoration. Members should not attempt to remove or trim foliage within 10 feet of a power line. If a tree or tree limbs have fallen on a power line or pulled it down, do not attempt to get close to the line. Call Citizens Electric at 1-877-876-3511 and report the damage.

Our crews will do what's required to help re-establish the grid and restore power; debris clean-up during outage situations is the landowner's responsibility.

If you see a Citizens Electric crew passing but not stopping, it may be because work at a nearby location must be performed before electric service can be restored to you and your neighbors.

If you use life-sustaining medical equipment dependent upon electricity, such as oxygen generators, kidney dialysis machines, or respirators, it is important to plan for an outage before it happens. 

Make sure Citizens Electric is informed about your medical equipment, and check the outage map for updates. For planned outages, due to scheduled maintenance, Citizens Electric alerts members accordingly. If you are experiencing a life-threatening medical emergency, please call 911.