Power Guide: What You Need to Know About Outages

This September has been one of the wettest in San Antonio history. While we all love the cooler temperatures and the chance to finish up that book we’ve been neglecting, storms can cause heavy traffic, flooding and even power outages. What should you do during a power outage? How do outages occur? How long will your power be out? We’ve got the answers! Use this blog as a handy guide for all things outages and check our website for more information.

What Causes a Power Outage?

• Thunderstorms: Storms can cause challenges to reliable power. Heavy rain may result in flooding, which can damage electrical equipment. Strong winds may cause power lines to contact tree limbs or other power lines. Lightning can strike equipment.
• Vehicle Accidents: Accidents often lead to broken utility poles, wires falling to the ground or other equipment damage.
• Trees and Vegetation: Outages can occur when trees fall onto power lines. Limbs may break or overgrown vegetation may disrupt equipment and cause failure.
• Wildlife: Squirrels, birds or other animals often come in contact with power lines, causing the power to shut down to protect the rest of the system.
• Other Causes: Light rain that causes dirt buildup on the wires to turn into sludge, extreme heat, balloons, kites and various other causes can result in a power outage in your area.

What Should I Do During an Outage?

• Report your outage online or by calling (210)-353-4357 to ensure that we are aware of it. Make sure your alert preferences are updated on Manage My Account to keep up to date on the status of the restoration.
• Charge cell phones, flashlights, batteries and other important items before the storm to make sure they’re available.
• Stay away from downed power lines and report them to us. Don’t attempt to move or drive over the lines.
• Unplug electrical equipment to help protect from power surges during power restoration.
• Keep the refrigerator door closed. Food should be safe up to four hours even with the power out.

How Can I Get More Information?

• Check our outage map. This map will tell you how many customers are out, how long the outage is expected to last and when a CPS Energy crew is on the way to fix the outage. Keep in mind that these numbers are estimates and can change based on the extent of the outage.
• Review our planned outages page. Some outages are scheduled as we continuously work to improve electric and gas reliability. If there will be a planned outage in your area, we will give you sufficient notice.

Providing reliable service is one of our top priorities. We know you count on us to keep the lights on each and every day. That is why we plan, prepare and train year-round to restore your power as quickly and safely as possible.