What to do in case of a power outage

First, verify that your whole house is out of power. Also check to see if nearby streetlights or your neighbors are out of power. Keep a flashlight and extra batteries handy at all times. If your electricity goes out, use the flashlight to check all rooms for lights or appliances that are working. If some things are working in your house, you may have only blown a fuse or tripped a circuit breaker and need to check your service panel. If you have verified that the outage is not related to your own ciricuit breaker or fuse box, turn off or disconnect any appliances you were using when the outage occurred. Leave one light on so you will know when power has been restored.

Be assured that our personnel will do everything possible to restore service quickly.

If the power does not come back on within a few minutes, or to report a safety hazard, please call 651-463-6201 or long distance 1-800-430-9722. (Please use these numbers ONLY to report power outages or emergency situations involving power lines.)

When you call, your call will be handled by a customer service representative or our Power Outage Response Call Handling Equipment (PORCHE). If your phone number is in our database, your number and location will be automatically reported when you call and you may then hang up. You may listen to the prompts for directions to leave a message if you know of a safety concern or possible cause of the outage. The information from PORCHE is fed immediately into an outage analysis computer system. Dispatchers use this information to direct power line crews to the possible source of the problem by two-way radio. All this is done with one goal in mind: to get your lights back on as soon as possible.

If the outage is widespread, our telephone lines may be busy when you call. Please be patient, your call is important to us. Also be encouraged that if the phone lines are busy, we most likely know about your outage. If you see your neighbors lights come on and yours are still off, then try calling in again.

In the event of substantial problems, we will communicate the situation to the local media as soon as we can determine the situation. For outage information, members are encouraged to tune to WCCO 830AM radio, which provides emergency coverage for the Twin Cities area. Be sure to always have a battery-operated radio available for use during a power outage.

What to do about medical needs

If someone in your household depends on in-home life support equipment, please notify us immediately. Dakota Electric maintains a record of members who use critical life support systems. These members are given high priority during power restoration. 

Members with special life support needs should send a letter, signed by a physician, briefly describing the situation and requesting inclusion on the list. Letters may be mailed to: Dakota Electric Association, Attn: Medical Emergency List, 4300 220th Street West, Farmington, MN 55024. 

If the outage is expected to last longer than you can be without power, and you don't have a back-up generator, your best response may be to go to a location with power until your own power is restored.

Recent Power Outage Information

Outages from the past 30 days, lasting more than 30 minutes and affecting at least 50 members, are listed on our outage information page. This information will be updated as soon as possible after an outage.

Power Outage Restoration

When our electrical grid is damaged by a storm or other cause, Dakota Electric's primary goal is to restore power to every member in the fastest and safest fashion.

Our first priority is public safety. For example, crews are sent to remove power lines from roadways first.

After that, substation power is restored if necessary. Sometimes, service to several hundred or several thousand members can be restored immediately by getting a substation re-energized.

Next, the major distribution feeders are repaired. These are usually a combination of overhead and underground wires extending from the substations.

Tap lines are repaired next. Tap lines carry power to groups of homes from the distribution feeders. If your neighbor's house is connected to a different tap line, their power may be restored before or after yours.

Finally, individual service lines are repaired. 

Note: Dakota Electric is responsible for getting electricity to your meter. However, the mast on the house (a pipe containing the wires that run from overhead lines to your meter) is your responsibility. If your mast is damaged or torn loose from the house, you must contact an electrician to repair it before Dakota Electric can restore your power.

A member with underground service is responsible for repair of any damage to the service entrance (a pipe containing the wires that run from the ground to your meter). The member is also responsible for repairs to the underground service wires from the lot corner to the house.

Reasons for power outages

• Storms: Wind, lightning, ice and snow are the most common causes of widespread outages.
• Trees: High winds sometimes cause branches to come in contact with powerlines. If your lights often blink on windy days, tree branches in the powerlines may be the cause: please call 651-463-6201 so we can investigate.
• Vehicles: Motor vehicles sometimes crash into utility poles or other equipment and cause outages.
• Animals: Squirrels, birds and other animals may contact lines and cause short circuits.
• Excavation digging: Shovels or other digging equipment can cause damage to underground cables.
• High power demand: Heat waves and other times of unusually high power demand can overload our equipment and cause an outage or cause equipment previously weakened by lightning to fail.