This will be our last update this evening. We will update again tomorrow morning.  

Farmers RECC crews are making progress. We currently have approximately 4,200 members without power, down from more than 6,000 at the height of the outage event. 

Due to the severity and widespread nature of this event, members should be prepared for complete power restoration to take until Wednesday, barring any complications. 

First, we want to say that we understand that this isn’t the news anyone wants to hear. We know our members depend on electricity, and our crews are working non-stop to get power restored to our members. 

Throughout the day, crews discovered additional broken poles. Our crews are also dealing with extremely adverse weather conditions. As the early rain continued, followed by a drop in temperature, even more ice formed on lines and trees which caused more outages to occur.  Additionally, much of the restoration work has required crews to climb poles due to current ground conditions, lengthening outage times.   

Our priority is the safety of our members and employees. If you have electricity-dependent medical or other equipment, or you do not have a backup heat source, you may need to make alternate plans. Stay away from fallen power lines. Always assume that any line is conducting electricity. Make sure generators are running in a well-ventilated area. 

We expect to see more progress tomorrow with the addition of 18 linemen providing mutual aid assistance.   

Restoration is slow. Some members may be questioning why their neighbor has power, but they don’t. This could be for a number of reasons. Your home may be served by a different substation, line or transformer. Your line could also be damaged at your service line or service connection point.  

To allow our employees to focus solely on restoration efforts, our offices will be closed on Monday, January 26. 

We appreciate our members’ thoughts and prayers during this time as our employees work to restore service.