Outage Safety and Information
What Causes a Power Outage?
Benton REA is recognized nationally for its reliable service. Despite Benton REA’s meticulous work to keep the power on, occasional outages do occur. Snow and ice, high winds, floods, fires, lightning, car accidents and animals can damage power lines and cause unpredictable outages.
Learn more about what causes power outages by watching this video.
What To Do During a Power Outage
After you have determined that the outage is not on your side of the electric meter, and you’ve reported the outage to Benton REA, we ask that you please be patient as crews work to restore power.
DO NOT attempt to touch or move a downed power line, and stay far away from power lines at all times and warn others to do the same. The ground around a downed powerline and anything it touches may be conducting electricity and can cause serious injury or death if touched.
Outage Restoration Plan
To effectively restore service under extreme conditions, Benton REA follows an emergency response plan. This plan helps identify how to best utilize Benton REA’s existing labor force, as well as when to call for additional labor or material resources. The plan also specifies the order of priority in which electrical service will be restored.
In general, our emergency response plan will restore power to the most number of people in the least amount of time, while putting the safety of our employees and members as our first priority.
We want to express our appreciation to all the members of Benton REA for their patience during difficult times and to thank all of the employees for their tremendous effort during inclement conditions. To help you understand the power restoration process, and why it may take longer than expected to restore your electricity, look at the "How Power is Restored" infographic to learn more.
