During an Outage

Why the Power Goes Out

Power outages are most commonly caused by bad weather, trees contacting electric lines or equipment, motor vehicle accidents affecting electric equipment or facilities, equipment failure, or damage done by animals. Also faulty wiring and equipment within your building can cause a localized power outage.

Things to Check & Report in a Power Outage

Investigate your home or business to determine if any electrical hazards are present. If there are, notify Tillamook PUD. If you see, hear or smell any signs of an electrical flash or fire, call 911.

Look to see if your neighbors are also without power. Street lights may be the best indication of this. Check your fuse box or service panel to determine if the problem is internal. If you receive service from an overhead line, look to see if the service wire has become damaged or pulled away from the building. Be extremely cautious if you see low hanging wires or wires on the ground. Never approach any wires or touch any surface, tree or object which is in contact with wires. If your lights dim or flicker, immediately turn off your electronic equipment (TV, computer, etc.) and wait until the power is stable to turn them back on.

Preparing for and Managing Through a Power Outage

  • If the outage lasts more than 45 minutes, turn off heating and cooling appliances until after power has been restored for some time. This will help avoid overload from excessive demand typically experienced in the first few minutes after power has been restored.
  • In the cold months close drapes, doors and windows to save heat; isolate a warm room or fireplace-heated room in the house.
  • Keep refrigerators and freezers closed to retain cooling. Most modern refrigerators will maintain adequate cooling for over six hours if doors are not opened.
  • Keep flashlights with fresh batteries in a convenient place. Don’t use candles, since they can cause a fire!
  • Keep all emergency phone numbers accessible by the phone.
  • Be sure to disconnect appliances and electronics to avoid damage from electrical surges or make sure sensitive electronics are plugged into a surge protection device.
  • Have alternate plans in place for refrigerating medicines.
  • Customers dependent on power for life-support equipment and/or using special medical equipment at home, should have back-up power generation and other contingency plans in place. Setting up plans with friends or relatives to get to a site with electricity and/or identify emergency centers at local social service agencies and checking with medical care providers regarding special power needs for medical equipment are important considerations when preparing for power outage situations.

For more power outage preparedness tips visit Ready.gov

How Tillamook PUD Responds to the Report of a Power Outage

Tillamook PUD becomes aware of an outage if power is lost at a substation, a main line into a substation, or if a customer calls to tell us. Once Tillamook PUD is aware of the outage, a Tillamook PUD employee is immediately sent to patrol the outage area and identify the problem. The employee takes action to isolate the problem and restore power to as many customers as possible. Depending on the problem, a crew may have to be called to work on repairs. Outage lengths vary, depending on the severity of the problem. Turn on your porch light so that our crews can easily see when power has been restored.