Media Guide

How long a power outage will be, and its cause, cannot be determined until a district crew physically inspects the affected area. Severe weather, such as lightning, can make it particularly difficult for the crew to reach and repair the distribution poles or wires.

Cotton Electric personnel use software that predicts the number of people without power as outages are reported, either by members or by crews inspecting the damage and determining the cause of the outage.

Although the amount of electricity an account uses is not a factor, CEC does prioritize life-threatening emergencies: live, downed power lines that may be a threat to the community, public service businesses (fire departments, for example), and homes with a resident who has a medical condition that requires uninterrupted electric service.

Western Farmers Electric Cooperative (WFEC) in Anadarko supplies CEC’s power. If WFEC’s power is lost to a substation, CEC helps WFEC restore power to the substation. If the situation allows, we will temporarily reroute power from other substations until power is restored to the original substation.

Disastrous circumstances present every utility service with unparalleled challenges. Extra manpower can be required to repair immense damage. In line with the cooperative spirit, whenever necessary and possible, cooperatives have a working agreement to help each other repair the service area that has been severely traumatized by disaster. In Oklahoma, this results in 27 cooperatives and thousands of co-op employees and contractors available to help one another during a major disaster. And, whenever needed, thousands of cooperatives nationwide can be called upon to help restore power to a severely traumatized area. Co-ops are able to restore power to devastated areas faster by helping each other.

Since there are a limited number of incoming telephone lines at the co-op and a large number of incoming calls, Cotton Electric members may receive a busy signal when they try to call – especially during a major power outage. Cotton Electric employees try to answer each call quickly and efficiently so that other members’ calls can get through. Cotton Electric also uses CRC, a cooperative that helps answer overflow calls during major outages, as well as an automated system to take outage calls.