Idaho Power: Storm Related Outages

In the Magic Valley area alone, there were over 14,000 customers without power at some point over the weekend. And many of these outages were small and caused by trees in lines, meaning we responded to hundreds of individual outages.

The biggest outages were caused when 34 poles on a transmission loop, meaning the lines that connect multiple substations in the valley, went down. Idaho Power was able to bring a lot of those people online Sunday, but just got that last pole replaced and the last 100 customers back online early this morning. Customers from Gooding and Hagerman, all the way to Shoshone and Dietrich, were impacted by that line going down.

As we head toward winter and the possibility of more extreme weather, Idaho Power wants to remind customers of a few things to keep in mind in case of another outage.

• Be prepared ahead of time by signing up to receive alerts of outages impacting your home through My Account.

• Plan ahead and gather a kit with all the necessities to have on hand during an outage, like a battery-powered lamp and non-perishable food.

• For current outage information, check our online Outage Map. During times with multiple outages like this past weekend, we do our best to keep the map as accurate as possible. However, we may have to suspend estimated restoration times as our crews focus on their first priority, which is safely restoring power.

• If you don’t see your outage on the map, please call 1-800-488-6151 to report it. And it’s not a bad idea to save that number in your phone just in case.

• And remember, always assume a downed power line is energized. Stay at least 100 feet back and call Idaho Power or 911 immediately.

Never use any object to move a downed power line.

To find a list of items to include in your emergency outage kit, visit idahopower.com/outagetips.