BULLHEAD CITY- Sudden strong wind gusts in northwest Arizona resulted in scattered outages throughout the Mohave Electric Cooperative service area this week.
MEC crews were battling the elements to restore power to affected areas. According to the National Weather Service website, storms were expected to produce local, strong wind gusts reaching up to 60mph.
MEC received reports of around 10 outages affecting approximately 3,000 members scattered throughout our east and west service areas. The first reported power outage took place Tuesday at 8:15 A.M. and power was restored to all members by 8:23 P.M., last night. One of the outages, caused by issues on the sub-transmission line, affected 2,518 members. Downed trees, non-secured personal items, and damaged transmission lines were the largest cause of the most recent power outages.
“With winds this strong, damage to power equipment can occur and lead to outages,” said Rick Campos, Chief Operating Officer. Trees, fallen branches, non-secured personal property, and winds reaching 60mph are common problems that may cause interference and service disruptions to members. When prepping for storms, please have trees trimmed and personal equipment stored in a secure location so that wind does not displace the items and lead to line obstruction.
If you observe trees, personal property, or other items currently encroaching power lines, please call (928) 763-1100 to report the issue. Tips on reducing such hazards can be found on the MEC website, www.mohaveelectric.com under the Member Services tab.
MEC strongly encourages all members to report outages. Please do not wait for someone else to report an outage. We need your help to locate outages so that we can respond promptly to ensure all members have power supplied.
Call the toll-free number (844) 632-2667 to report an outage. Members can also text in an outage, by texting “outage” to 55050 from a phone number that is linked to their account. The automated outage-reporting system makes reporting easy and improves response and restoration time. Also, members can log into their SmartHub account via the internet or through their SmartHub phone application to report outages as well.
Outage restoration is very important to Mohave Electric Cooperative, and every effort is made to restore power as quickly and safely as possible.
