FAQs

Q:  My neighbor has power, but I don’t. Why is that?
A:  There are several reasons your neighbor may have power while you are still without. Damage may have occurred to the service wire that leads to your home which would not affect your neighbor’s power. Your neighbor's home may get power from a different circuit or feed than your home. The power line pole in front of your home may have up to three different “hot lines” or phases. Even though both you and your neighbor are hooked up to the same pole, you may be on different phases. A problem down the street that's served by the same phase as your home could be keeping the power off for you.

Q:  A truck just passed my house without stopping. Why?
A:  The repair crew was probably working on getting the main circuits (trunk lines) of the electric system repaired. After these main circuits are repaired, our teams work on outages that affect the most people at one time. Repairs that affect only one or two locations will probably be last.

Q: My power is supplied by underground wires. Why did I lose power?
A:  Even though the wires to your home may be buried, they are ultimately fed by overhead wires that bring in electricity to your neighborhood. These overhead wires may be damaged.

Q:  I tried to call during a power outage, and all I got was a busy signal.
A:  A large outage will multiply the amount of regular phone calls we get exponentially, making it impossible to answer all the calls. We're also able to take your outage report over the Internet or your myTCEMC app.