How Power is Restored

During minor outages, power is usually restored within an hour or two with minor inconvenience to our members.  But when major storms cause widespread damage, extended outages can occur.  Line crews work long, hard hours restoring service, but it's a task that needs to be handled methodically to be done safely.

Every electric cooperative follows a basic principle when it comes to restoring power: priority goes to the lines that will get the most people back in service the quickest.  This usually begins with main lines and continues out to tap lines and then to individual service lines.

Exceptions are made for members and businesses that rely on life-supporting medical equipment.  Notify us immediately if someone in your household uses such equipment, and we encourage you to install a standby generator.

We have operational procedures in place to organize the restoration process, as well as communication procedures to relay updates to local radio stations, television stations and newspapers.  You can also find outage updates on our home page.

The following steps briefly explain how power is restored in electric distribution systems:

1. First, we look at public safety.  For example, we send our crews to remove power lines from roadways before anything else.

2. We restore power to the substations next, if necessary.  (A substation is an electrical facility containing equipment for controlling the flow of electricity from supplier to user.)  Restoring power at the substation level often restores power to most members.  If you see our line trucks pass by your home and you’re out of power, please know our crews are working to restore your power in chronological order.  Think of power restoration like the parts of a tree: if the root system is dead, the rest of the tree won’t have life.  The same is true for power restoration; If the substation is out, no one has power and this must be repaired first.

3. Next, major distribution feeders are repaired.  These are lines that come out of a substation and are connected to a pole along a cross arm.  If these lines are down, individual homes can’t get power.

4. Tap lines are repaired next.  These are lines that carry power to groups of homes from distribution feeders.  If your neighbor’s lights come on while yours remain out after the tap line is repaired, it could mean there is still damage to your individual line and you should call Corn Belt at 800-879-0339 to report the problem.

5. Finally, individual service lines are repaired.  Please be assured that we're doing everything in our power to restore yours.  If needed, we'll call in additional help from local contractors and neighboring electric cooperatives to restore power as quickly as possible.