Outage facts

CEO Craig Spencer is pictured
Craig Spencer

We do our best to avoid pow­er dis­rup­tions, but they are inevitable from time to time. Here are some key things to know about the work we do and what you can expect in an out­age.

1. We need you. Ensur­ing you have the cor­rect phone num­ber on file is key so that our team can effi­cient­ly iden­ti­fy your account and com­mu­ni­cate impor­tant out­age updates.

2. We have high expec­ta­tions. Our goal is to be onsite work­ing to restore ser­vice with­in one hour, except in cas­es of large storms. Although every out­age is dif­fer­ent, our team is trained to work as quick­ly as pos­si­ble to plan for restora­tion with­out com­pro­mis­ing the integri­ty of ser­vice for oth­er mem­bers.

3. Our employ­ees might be affect­ed, too. YEC is proud to have locals look­ing out for you, which means our employ­ees share this same com­mu­ni­ty. If your pow­er is out, it is like­ly our pow­er is out at home, too.

4. Our pri­or­i­ty is safe­ty. Our crews focus on respond­ing first to pub­lic safe­ty issues and crit­i­cal ser­vices. Then, we com­plete work that impacts the largest num­ber of mem­bers. Besides work­ing around high volt­age elec­tric­i­ty, our crews are also often work­ing in severe weath­er con­di­tions.

5. We’re pre­pared for this. Aside from main­tain­ing a five-year right-of- way trim­ming cycle, we invest in plan­ning and build­ing a resilient grid. Keep­ing rights-of-way trimmed allows us to safe­ly and eas­i­ly access our equip­ment and help pre­vent tree-relat­ed out­ages. Addi­tion­al­ly, our smart devices allow us to iso­late out­ages so that we can quick­ly restore ser­vice for mem­bers who are unaf­fect­ed by the dam­ages. Your reli­a­bil­i­ty begins in the plan­ning and con­struc­tion of your ser­vice. When pos­si­ble, we like to pro­vide two dif­fer­ent pow­er sources, cre­at­ing a loop, to serve mem­bers. This allows your co-op more flex­i­bil­i­ty in an out­age sit­u­a­tion, strength­ens our grid, and cre­ates less dis­rup­tion for our mem­bers.

6. Flick­er­ing lights are some­times a good thing. Flick­er­ing lights are not out­ages. These “blinks” indi­cate our equip­ment worked and pre­vent­ed a pos­si­ble out­age.

7. You need a plan. If you depend on elec­tric­i­ty for life sup­port pur­pos­es, you should have a back­up plan. It is also help­ful to always have a sup­ply kit to stay safe in a storm. You can learn more online in our storm cen­ter.

8. Some­times, it’s a wait­ing game. Our por­tion of the pow­er grid is con­nect­ed to trans­mis­sion lines from oth­er util­i­ties. If your out­age is due to an issue from their equip­ment serv­ing our sys­tem, we must let them do their repairs first.

9. It’s a team effort. When the pow­er goes out, all hands are on deck to get the job done. We plan for this, and every­one goes to work to do their part to effi­cient­ly restore ser­vice, no mat­ter the time of day or day of the year.

If you expe­ri­ence an out­age, please let us know by call­ing Pow­er­Touch, 1 (866) 374‑1234, or you can text OUTAGE to 352667. As always it is our priv­i­lege to look out for you and pro­vide you with ser­vice excel­lence.

Craig Spencer
Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer

Your board in action

Con­tin­ued train­ing and edu­ca­tion for cur­rent and new board mem­bers is ongo­ing. To serve you with excel­lence, York Elec­tric Trustees spend a great deal of time learn­ing about indus­try chal­lenges, the coop­er­a­tive busi­ness mod­el and new tech­nolo­gies that might ben­e­fit our mem­bers.