Restoring electric power in emergencies
Ripley Power and Light’s service territory escaped the destruction from the snow and ice of Winter Storm Fern.
As the storm approached Jan. 23, Power and Light employees went on standby, ready to respond quickly if power outages occurred.
In widespread outages, like those that occurred elsewhere, Power and Light has a plan to restore power. With each decision, the underlying goal is to restore power safely to the greatest number of customers in the shortest time possible.
- With help from our Outage Management System, the first step is to assess damages and make sure any downed power lines are not hazardous.
- Problems on transmission lines and at electric substations are fixed first since they can affect thousands of customers. We also give priority to critical places like our hospital, water treatment plants and customers who depend on life support.
- We next repair feeder lines that leave substations. We work our way across the system, first repairing problems serving larger groups of customers to gradually fixing problems serving smaller groups.
- Finally, we repair damage to service lines to individual homes.
You can help
Each year, Ripley Power and Light trims trees and bushes away from power lines —a major way to retain electric reliability. Customers can help by calling us whenever they see trees too close to power lines.
To report an outage
Ripley Power and Light has adopted an easier way to report an outage.
Using your smart phone, text or call 888-590-2323. You’ll be asked to give the location of the outage.
Our Outage Management System will immediately assess the situation and help direct us as we respond.
The new outage page on our website also has the phone number, and it updates to show any current outages in the system. Click on the orange “Report an Outage” box at ripleypower.com.