New online Outage Map keeps YEC members informed

York Elec­tric mem­bers can now access an online Out­age Map that gives real-time infor­ma­tion on ser­vice inter­rup­tions in the co-op’s ser­vice area.

The Out­age Map makes the same infor­ma­tion avail­able to the pub­lic that the co-op uses to restore ser­vice quick­ly. As Direc­tor of Engi­neer­ing Craig Spencer says, “It’s putting more infor­ma­tion in the mem­bers’ hands—and more quick­ly.”

Pre­vi­ous­ly, YEC mem­ber ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tives could access sim­i­lar maps to advise mem­bers who called about out­ages, says Tech­nol­o­gy Admin­is­tra­tor Jim Salmon. Now, a mem­ber can see much of what sys­tem oper­a­tors like Hol­ly Williams see on those inter­nal maps. “It shows to get more and more infor­ma­tion to the mem­ber. And this just fits per­fect­ly with that phi­los­o­phy.”

Spencer and Lynn say the Out­age Map is inte­grat­ed with inter­nal sys­tems that help YEC see what’s out more quick­ly and improve its response times. Bot­tom line, Lynn says, “It’s bet­ter ser­vice to the mem­ber.”

He says mem­bers will find the Out­age Map user friend­ly: “I think they’ll like it.” YEC also plans to pro­vide esti­mat­ed ser­vice restora­tion times.

Salmon adds that mem­bers in the future will be able to sub­mit out­age reports via their mobile device. “New tech­nol­o­gy is mak­ing it eas­i­er to bring these sys­tems online,” he notes.

Still, the key to any tech­nol­o­gy’s effec­tive­ness is the human com­po­nent. In this case, as Spencer notes, it’s cru­cial that YEC has valid, cur­rent phone num­bers of mem­bers for the out­age man­age­ment sys­tem to work effi­cient­ly. “The whole thing is hav­ing that num­ber,” he says. “The sys­tem feeds off of that num­ber.”

Do we have your cor­rect phone num­ber?

Make sure we have your correct phone number

YEC’s Pow­er­Touch out­age man­age­ment sys­tem lets you eas­i­ly report an out­age from your home tele­phone, or from anoth­er loca­tion by enter­ing the phone num­ber list­ed on your account.

There’s just one catch: We MUST have your up-to-date tele­phone num­ber for Pow­er­Touch to work most effec­tive­ly. The num­ber can be a land-line num­ber where you receive ser­vice or any num­ber, such as for a mobile phone, that you pro­vide us to asso­ciate with your YEC ser­vice.

If you’re not cer­tain we have your cur­rent phone num­ber in our records, call the co-op’s mem­ber ser­vices line, (803) 684‑4248. Mem­ber ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tives will ver­i­fy or update our account records for you.

Pow­er­Touch is the best way to help us get your lights back on quick­ly. If you expe­ri­ence a pow­er out­age and have already checked your main break­er, please call Pow­er­Touch at 1 (866) 374‑1234 or text: 352667