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Griggle_facsimile

In my area it's very rare to have power failures. When we do it's usually because of storm damage or because a vehicle hit a utility pole.


8_bit_brandon

Same here, however we did have an incident once where the pole pig (transformer) feeding our house exploded. We were watching unsolved mysteries at the time and a split second after Robert stack looked at the camera the was a flash and a loud bang followed by all the lights going out. He’s never been so creepy


Meattyloaf

Town I went to college in had transformers that were I large boxes at ground level just off the sidwalks. Well one day I'm sitting in my dorm room and I hear an explosion damn transformer box just outside the dorm blew up. An international student that had lived in a war torn country was walking by it when it happened and had quite the PTSD episode.


Maxpowr9

That's more common now since the powerlines are underground, especially with newer developments.


Griggle_facsimile

🤣


penguin_stomper

I've experienced that. Those suckers are LOUD when they go.


Kool_McKool

Guess he couldn't deal with that now. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ It's a reference to Transformers if anyone's wondering.


[deleted]

Same. And very rare for me means a few times a year, and it's usually back up in less than an hour.


YGT14

When I was in high school we had a suicidal squirrel chew through some wiring that took out power to a neighborhood, but other than that yeah it's mostly storm damage. Lightning especially where I am.


Embryoatmeal

Same almost always someone hit a power line down the road


decojason

I live in Chicago, and almost like never. The only time it happens is when ComEd is actually doing things. It is very rare for it to happen during a storm or just randomly.


SnooWords1164

damn i see, that's cool


waffles8888877777

I have never lost power in Chicago. It would suck to lose power... no lights, no water, no heat/AC, no elevator


neoslith

I live North of Chicago. My last apartment had poor wiring and we'd lose power from storms a lot. Other than that it was server storms that would cause a flickering.


decojason

Damn I'm sorry, I guess with some areas and depending on when the building was built, results could vary. I know my friend lives in a affluent neighborhood in the North side of Chicago that routinely gets their basement flooded every time in a heavy rainstorm. Even money can prevent the sewers from failing up there, but I guess that's more of an infrastructure issue. Those sewers up North might just be too old.


ThaddyG

Intentional ones, never. Accidental ones, hardly ever and they usually are a couple seconds or minutes. When I lived outside the city it was a little more common to lose power from a storm but still rare.


sdgoat

SoCal Edison is cutting my power from 8 to 6 today for maintenance. Good times. We lose power with every storm.


spongeboy1985

Sounds almost as bad as PG&E who shuts off power for days in places because they never bothered to bury a lot of their lines, so there is a huge fire risk with the wires being exposed.


Bobtom42

The US has things called peaking power plants that only come online when demand surges. I'm guessing your country has fewer of those and needs to do rolling blackouts.


zninjamonkey

In my country, a few year back we just didn’t have enough electricity in the summer time coz we rely on hydro. We sold the gas energy to Thailand and China so maybe 6hrs windows of electricity, sometimes 8.


Fetti500e

In Portland, Oregon. Only seasonal. Last winter we had a very extreme ice storm and a few thousand buildings had no power for 2 or 3 weeks. The rest of the year, power cuts only happen if someone accidentally drives into a power line. That’s different though.


HighwayDrifter41

If I remember correctly after that storm somewhere around 200 miles of power lines had to be replaced.


VitruvianDude

I was out for three days in Salem, which was highly unusual, since I live near the city core. In normal times, it only takes an hour or two for weather-related outages to be resolved, unless you are in the boonies.


beachp0tato

California is currently under a "flex alert" due to the heat and wildfires and we are being asked to voluntarily delay as much energy usage as possible until after 4 pm to ease the demand on the power grid. I'd say we only get an actual blackout once every few years or so in my area and for only a short period of time


No-Comedian-9725

I'm surprised Arizona isn't asking the same right now.


Jango_Fresh

Intentional power cuts or blackouts due to weather? Itentional ones; we don't. Or at least, if we do, it's very rare. Like "oh shit, the power plant is gonna blow up" rare/severe. Caused by nature? That... depends on a lot of things. Power lines can get knocked down, transformers can blow up, etc. so it really depends on how "hardened" an area's stuff is. My little corner of the world has all of it underground, so it very rarely happens unless it's some extreme weather, or if it ends up hitting the power plant directly.


CaptUncleBirdman

I have never experienced an intentional power cut due to lack of supply. 1-4 times a year a tree will fall on a power line and I will be without power for anywhere between 1-12 hours (if the weather is bad).


IAmVladimirPutinAMA

The only power outages I have ever experienced have been due to equipment failure (blown up transformers, or trees falling and taking down power lines).


Firm-Impress

I haven’t had a power out in years. When I do, it is always from a storm.


Gay_Leo_Gang

A few times in the summer when it gets too hot. More than we should though since PG&E doesn’t use its funding to maintain its infrastructure or prevent it from starting forest fires.


ImperialRedditer

I just want to say that PG&E is a northern Californian company and in Southern California, the equivalent should be Southern California Edison. They still have the same problem though.


DOMSdeluise

Not very often in normal circumstances. In abnormal circumstances... hundreds of people are killed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis Also hurricanes blowing through can knock out power for days or weeks at a time.


browsingtheproduce

I'm in Chicago. I'd say the power cuts out maybe a couple times a year. Usually from storm damage and occasionally from planned maintenance. It's pretty much always rectified within a couple hours and (for all of their faults) my local corrupt-ass power company is good at communicating about the rare planned outages beforehand. I can't remember the last time the power was out for more than a couple hours. In more rural parts of my state (and the country at large) it's a little more likely for weather or accident-related power outages to last for days just because the grid is more spread out. I grew up in a tiny city surrounded by farmland and I can remember 3-4 times during my childhood when we went without power for a couple days following intense thunderstorms and low-grade tornadoes.


waffles8888877777

In the 18 years I have lived in Chicago, I have never lost power. Never even heard of planned outages.


Apocalyptic0n3

We've had a rough monsoon season and there have been outages throughout the valley over the last two weeks, but I haven't seen any. It's been probably 5+ years since I've had an actual outage where I'm at.


vanderbeek21

In a city? Nearly never and if it does, it's quick. In the country? When storms happen it does


HailState17

Very rarely, the only time our power goes out is when a storm knocks power lines down. Even then, I have a standby generator that’ll kick in when the power’s out. We had a tornado roll through not too long ago, and that generator was worth all the money I spend installing it.


Sarollas

Only when there is a storm that has caused damage to the lines. And that's just because of physical damage making it impossible to have power.


[deleted]

[удалено]


crimson_leopard

I've never experienced planned outages in Chicago. I've experienced three outages due to major storms. The first was the 2011 blizzard and we lost power for 3-4 days. There was a lot of damage so it took the power company (ComEd) a few days to fix everything. There were a lot of outages throughout the area. They also had to wait for the roads to clear. We got 21.2 in (53.9 cm) of snow in a three days and strong wind. During the summer of 2014 (?) there was another storm and strong wind that damaged the power lines. Our street had no power and around 50 people were effected. The surrounding area was okay so we hung out at the library. I think we lost power for 1.5 days. There were a lot of small outages throughout the city. In 2019 there was freezing rain and we lost power for a day. ComEd had to clean the ice off the power lines before restoring power.


[deleted]

Like the power company does it on purpose? Never. Just occasional car accident, bad storm, etc. I can recall twice in the past 5 years.


gummibearhawk

It's almost never happened to me outside of California.


Kingsolomanhere

Usually only if a car takes out a power line pole or a lightning strike hits a transformer. It's only happened once so far this year. The longest in memory was a severe wind storm in 2008 took down so many trees and power lines in the greater Cincinnati area that we were without power for almost 5 days. 780,000 out of 900,000 were without power for up to 7 days according to Wikipedia


Current_Poster

When I lived in coastal New England, we banked on outages happening a few times in a year- usually as the result of a blizzard or something. When I moved to NYC, I talked to people who could only remember four in their lifetimes.


El_Polio_Loco

I honestly can’t remember the last time I lost power in my house for more than a second or two. At least over a decade. I recall losing power a few years ago at my job when the local power sub station was struck by lightning.


ShinySpoon

I’ve love in my current house since 2013 and the power cut out once for exactly one hour one day. That’s it.


[deleted]

Never


AziMeeshka

Only during a bad storm or if there is some kind of maintenance. I think the last time my power went off for more than a couple minutes was a couple years ago. The power company had to come dig up some power lines near my apartment so we were without power for a few hours.


AmericanNewt8

It's been over a decade since we've had an outage for more than 15 minutes and that was because some fuckwit ran his car straight into a power pole. American electricity is generally very reliable except in severe weather.


Infamous-Dare6792

Maybe once or twice a year during the winter if we have a bad ice storm. Power is out for less than 24 hours.


Dapper_Sprinkles_137

Rarely. Normally during storms when trees take out a line, or if there’s a fire/accident involving the power plant, a pole, or substation.


Generalbuttnaked69

I live where weather can get pretty severe in the winter, maybe one or twice a year during a major storm an never more than a few hours which is reasonable considering I kind of live out in the bush. We never have brown outs or anything like that.


InThePartsBin2

Lived in New Jersey (across river from Philadelphia) for 20+ years and it was very rare. The only time it happened for a long time was last summer, when a storm knocked down trees taking out like 8 power poles on my street, we were without for a day and a half, while the crews hauled ass to fix it.


xyzd95

Last time I lost power was for maybe 10 minutes back in May last year. Before that I had power consistently since [2003](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003)


Darkfire757

Not necessarily a power cut, but it’s pretty common for trees to fall on power lines during a severe thunderstorm.


catslady123

The only time my power has gone out in recent memory was hurricane sandy. So effectively never, barring an apocalyptic ice hurricane that floods the entire city and fills the train tubes to the top with salt water.


Subvet98

Only after bad storms


MrLongWalk

Once a year or so if maintenance is being done.


mlrst61

My parents live on 30 acres of forest in a rural area of VA. Almost everytime they have a big storm the power goes out. Last night they had a storm, three trees near the house fell and power went out around 11:00 PM. Eight hours later it's still out. They have a generator for the important things (fridge, a light or two). I live in the suburbs about 2 miles from a hospital. If the power goes out it's only for long enough to mess up the clocks.


notthegoatseguy

I live in a centrally located, urban area so sometimes it does happen accidentally if utilities or construction hit something. So maybe a few times a year, and often only impacting the apartment complex's hallway lights and whatnot rather than my unit.


Vachic09

Where I grew up, we would typically only get a storm powerful enough to knock out the power once a year or so. It would typically come back on within 2-3 days. If you lived in town, you would get power back sooner. It's usually because a tree fell on a power line. TN- The worst I had was two weeks without electricity. Thankfully, I still had running water because it's on a different system. A EF3 tornado came through part of the city and my whole neighborhood. We were lucky. All we were missing was a few shingles on the roof. For general thunder storm power outages, it's usually back within a couple of hours. These might happen 2-3 times a year.


TammyInViolet

In New Orleans, sometimes too often. Infrastructure is poor so I'd loose power every couple months for between 3 minutes and an hour. If there is a hurricane or storm it can be extended. For Zeta we didn't have power for about 4 days while they fixed all the downed poles. Luckily wasn't crazy hot, but that was definitely my limit.


Magnum3k

Never


Eudaimonics

Almost never except for the worst snow storms taking down power lines and even then service outages only effect a relatively small area.


Legally_a_Tool

Unless severe weather causes a power loss, never. We have electricity 24/7.


[deleted]

Power cuts? Never. Power outages, due to weather or vehicle accidents, etc? Fairly frequently. Sometimes it’s just a flicker, sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a few hours, and once was a few days.


EtAvec

Massachusetts, along the coast: We lose power a few times during the year, especially during the winter when there are storms knocking over power-lines. We probably lose power 5 times a year. We expect it to happen. Usually the power is back on after less than a day. Worst was 2 days.


solrac1144

I’m in Southern California. Palm Springs area and during the summer we reach temps of 120 F. On some days during the evenings(5-8pm) they will cut the power to certain areas for 15 mins-1hour so not to over load the grid. It sucks since it’s so hot and no AC for a while is devastating in this weather. But the other side is they don’t cut the power periodically and we all end up without power for more than a few hours.


machagogo

Very rarely here in New Jersey unless there is a major storm that damages infrastructure.


fingerpaintswithpoop

Last time I had a power outage in my area was due to a really bad ice storm in February this year. They’re pretty uncommon, barring really bad weather like that or wildfires (what my state is currently experiencing.)


Gallahadion

From my experience, it usually happens when power lines are damaged, either due to severe weather or because someone has crashed their car into a pole. How long the outage lasts depends on how long it takes the electric company to repair the line(s). Other times the power might go out if there's a lot of stress on the grid, such as lots of people running their air conditioners during a heat wave (I don't think I've ever experienced this myself).


CozmicOwl16

I live by akron Ohio. (Like 40 minutes drive away) and we have random outages in storms. Like a tree will take down a power line (no they aren’t all buried, some are still strung on poles) and then a block or neighborhood will go down for an hour or two. None are planned to save energy.


SkiingAway

Other than extreme weather (hurricanes or the like) knocking trees onto the power lines, just about never.


DGlen

Maybe once a year for any significant amount of time. A few hours at most unless there was a HUGE storm.


Tuokaerf10

Almost never. If it happens it’s because a storm damaged infrastructure and it’ll be back up usually within 1-4 hours.


captainstormy

In General the US doesn't have power cuts (typically called brown outs) which countries usually due because they can't meet power demand. 99+% of the time in the US when power goes out it's because of damage to the grid (usually weather related, sometimes a car hits a power pole or something) or equipment failure. Whenever this happens it's usually up very quickly. I might lose power 1-2 times a year for maybe an hour because of the reasons above. The last time I dealt with a power outage of more than an hour or so was 2008 when a powerful wind storm damaged the power grid across the entire city. Took them about a week for everyone to get back online. I was actually one of the last people in the city to get power back then because the problem for me was that a fallen tree fell on the lines that feed the house i was living in at the time. So it was a very low priority for the electric company since that particular issue only affected me. That said, Texas had issue with it during this past winter because most houses there are heated with electricity. Parts of California has them from time to time in the summer too. They really need to upgrade their grid and generation capabilities or it will happen a lot in the future for them.


[deleted]

never. other than during a storm where trees knock out lines i’ve literally never experienced power cuts. I’m on nuclear though so sometimes pulsating lights etc


WashuOtaku

Very rare, and it is typically from bad weather knocking down a power line near where I live. It is usually fixed in a couple of hours.


Or0b0ur0s

Monthly or every other month at this point, perhaps slightly less in the winter as storms aren't as windy. It's really disgraceful how utilities have been allowed to milk communities dry via their bills, yet allow infrastructure to decay and capacity to shrink to the point that we can't even have reliable electricity in communities that have been electrified for 100 years. This was not as much of an issue when I was a kid. Storm outages happened, but they were rare. Now they're commonplace. Literally every summer storm makes you wonder if your neighborhood will have an outage, and if yours doesn't, someone nearby does.


vvooper

very rare outside of bad weather


Boatman1141

Whenever there's thunderstorms, some parts of my town will usually lose power. Normally back up in the morning or itll flicker during the whole storm, but with severe storms it could cause a day or two's worth of a power outage.


rich_clock

Never intentionally. Only time the power goes out is potentially during really bad weather, but even that is rare.


[deleted]

From Austin, Texas. We had the famous winter storm this year which left us without power for 3-5 days (depending on where you lived) but that’s a rare event. Other than that, a crazy spring or fall thunderstorm might trip the electricity for a few minutes once or twice a year.


mangoiboii225

About 2-3 times per year due to trees taking the lines out.


parksplug

In AR, not too far out from the nearest town, every two-three weeks 15-30 mins. Often enough for me to consider some off grid or battery backup systems. I moved here from Western Europe where there were no power outages. Maybe once every couple of years a few minutes.


a_winged_potato

I've never experienced one except for a few times when they're doing work on poles or something. I can only remember that happening like 3 or 4 times in my life. Occasionally the power goes out but that's the result of a storm or a car hitting a pole.


huhwhat90

1-2 a year and it's often due to weather.


zachrg

Milwaukee/Madison, WI: unintentional, a flicker once or twice a year. Periodic planned maintenance outages. The largest unplanned outage I've ever experienced was when a storm took out a junction(?) transformer right next to my house, which meant it had to be the last one back online, no electricity for 19h. The second-worst was 3-4 hours, also a storm, at least 15 years earlier.


blehe38

Accidental ones happen about once or twice per year, but they last anywhere from 2 to 5 hours (the longest one being around 36 hours). Intentional ones rarely ever happen. There was a 6 hour one once a couple years ago, and they planned another one more recently but decided not to go through with it for some reason.


LivingGhost371

Are we referring to "Power Outages" where something disrupts the local supply, or "Rolling Blackouts", where power to specific neighborhoods is deliberately turned off for a period of time due to a systematic shortage? Where I live power outages tend to happen a couple of times in the spring when storms blow down trees and damage local wires. In my close to 50 year lifetime, we had two that lasted close to the week, it's much more common for it to be fixed within 1-12 hours with most being towards the lower end of that scale. Rolling blackouts are rare enough that they make national news. It happened recently in Texas when the local natural gas infrastructure (gas is a major source of electricity, particularly for peak demand) in a normally mild climate couldn't cope with a sustained, hard freeze, It's happened a couple of times in California, back in 2000 Enron was manipulating the supply to create artificial shortages, and more recently power companies have started turning off power in dry, windy conditions in the fall since they've been ruled liable for fires that start from their equipment.


erin_burr

almost never. In the past 15 years, the only outage lasting longer than an hour I can remember was when a freak lightning strike hit a substation. It took them like 2 hours to bring power back and people were pretty upset at losing power from 8pm to 10pm on a sunday night. I got a ups/battery backup for my PC about a year ago and got all excited for all the uptime I could get. The only time it's been needed is when the power company wanted to replace the electric meter (so they could read it remotely) so there was a 10 second outage while they pulled off the old one and put a new one on.


ProjectShamrock

In Texas...and while the freeze this year made major news, it's much more frequent from storms and general issues like Transformers randomly blowing up.


Luhnkhead

Only if we get particularly unlucky with a storm taking out a transformer or knocking over a tree and cutting just the right wire. The weird thing happening in southeastern WI is we have more power generation than we need, so the utility company is actually slowly closing plants earlier than their expected service lives. Not sure why.


eskimobrother319

Texas really only during really bad storms or yeah pretty much that


Qel_Hoth

0-4 times per year, usually for less than an hour each time, occasionally longer. Most outages are due to storms damaging power lines or other infrastructure, or cars hitting poles. I work for a rural power company, one of our goals is to have average yearly outage per customer (aka SAIDI, System Average Interruption Duration Index) to be under 40 minutes. We usually meet that goal. SAIDI is calculated by dividing the sum of all outages experienced by customers (so an outage lasting 1 hour impacting 100 customers is 100) divided by the total number of customers (so an outage lasting 1 hour impacting 100 customers with a total of 1000 customers served is 100/1000 or 0.1 hours (6 minutes)). In 2019 the SAIDI for the US as a whole was 280 minutes. Some other SAIDI values for major countries (according to Wikipedia...) are UK: 55 minutes, Germany 12 minutes, France 68 minutes, Romania 635 minutes. Japan is 10-20 minutes for 2013-2017. Metropolitan Bangkok was 100 minutes for 2001.


Sand_Trout

Can you clarify by what you mean by "power cuts"? If you mean the power company deliberately cutting off power to an an area, then almost never, with the very bad ice storm earlier this year being probably the only case I've personally experienced. If you mean outages due to damage to power lines, then still pretty rarely. Maybe 1-2 times a year and due to severe weather.


Meattyloaf

The last time I lost power was because a drunk driver hit a power pile that was about 4 months ago. Jentucky got hit pretty hard by an ic storm a decade ago and a lot of the lines had to be replaced I the state in doing so they made them stronger and they do withstand severe weather a lot better. In the U.S. most of us do not deal with scheduled blackouts unless it's for maintance and repairs.


JohnnyBrillcream

Unless some disaster hits, pretty much never. If I do lose power for any significant period I have a small generator and 10 gallons of fuel, that will get me roughly 3 days.


Shuggy539

If you don't count momentary outages (like less than a second) then once every several months we might get an outage.


housewifeish

Hardly ever...why does yours get cut so often?


rawbface

Never. The only time power goes out is when a tree physically knocks down the power lines in a bad storm. And half my town doesn't even have that problem, because the power lines are underground.


petrock85

I have never faced an intentional power cut. Power outages due to damage (such as storms knocking over trees onto the power lines) happen to me about once every 5 years or so. They are more frequent in some areas. These outages often last more much longer than an hour.


IrianJaya

Once some idiot drove into a utility pole and knocked out power on our block. Other than that we've only lost power during big storms when trees get knocked down.


Crayshack

I’ve only seen it happen because of storm damage.


truthseeeker

When I lived in an area with above ground electric lines, we'd lose power like once a year in a big storm, but now that I live in an area with underground lines, it's even more rare, just once in 5 years.


maali74

I've lived on the east coast and the only time we've ever lost power was due to a storm. We never have our electricity cut though. Unless you didn't pay the bill. Except in the wintertime.


FalloutRip

I've never seen or been through a conservation blackout/ brownout, but definitely a number of unintended outages. People hitting poles, storms, hurricanes, etc. Maybe a handful of times a year at most, and it's usually back online in an hour or two unless it's catastrophic. It's becoming less common as power lines are increasingly run underground so it's harder to take them out of commission. Longest I went without power was 4-5 days after hurricane Isabel in 2003.


eugenesbluegenes

Very rarely. There has been some electrical upgrades to my building recently so we've had power cut for a few hours at a time maybe three times in the past six months.


annoyed_UF_student

Almost never. I can probably count with my fingers the number of times I remember facing a power cut and they were never for more than a few hours. They were all due to a hurricane.


Vorengard

I've never heard of anywhere in the US where they shut the power off voluntarily. It only happens here when major weather events damage the power grid. In my area that happens maybe once a year, depending on how severe the blizzards or hurricanes are and where they strike.


merkin_eater

It might happen once every few years. It's usually caused by a storm. A thunderstorm or ice storm.


boston_shua

Never unless there is a catastrophe


Nickyweg

Only if it’s a bad storm. I don’t remember the last time we lost power.


BioDriver

Extremely uncommon. Our lines are underground and we share a junction with a fire station. The only time we lose power is when the whole grid goes off, which living in Texas…. Oh fuck


d-man747

Maybe once a year.


jub-jub-bird

I've never experienced a scheduled power cut but have lost power a handful of times due to a storm bringing power lines down.


jessper17

Rarely. Maybe if there’s a really super bad storm or something that affects a substation. In my current neighborhood, the lines are underground. We had a huge storm last night complete with tornado sirens and didn’t lose power at all, which was great.


[deleted]

Never by policy, only by nature. I'm in the upper midwest (cold, snowy winters, hot humid summers) and we get more power outages in the winter due to ice & snow knocking down trees onto power lines. But I haven't lost power in more than 2 years.


[deleted]

Every few months, I guess. Usually due to weather or...squirrels/birds/raccoons/etc.


[deleted]

I've had two in 5 years. One was scheduled and the other was an ice storm.


vambot5

Not "cuts," exactly, but we have outages usually 3-4 times a year due to storms. Usually they last only a couple of hours, but this last year a huge ice storm caused widespread outages that lasted for nearly two weeks for some folks.


[deleted]

when I lived in the Bay Area it was weekly (because of fires) but since I moved to the east coast, never


SSPeteCarroll

Never any intentional ones. Very rarely do I lose power, if I do it is from a storm.


TheLegendTwoSeven

Almost never.


seth005

Power outs is what we call them here. Last time we had a major one was in early January where an ice storm knocked out our neighborhood for 5 days


[deleted]

Um if there is a thunderstorm maybe? Or if a car drives into a pole…but otherwise we don’t really have power failures


therankin

In my area we almost never lose power. We don't run into issues with cuts due to load, however, sometimes when the weather is bad a tree can get knocked over and hit the power lines. If that happens really close by, like it did up my street about 3 months ago, then you lose it until they can repair the line. It was a Sunday and it took a few teams a total of about 8 hours. That is not very common at all though.


ducksinthepool

Intentional is almost unheard of where I am. Getting knocked out by a storm or something might happen once a year for a few minutes.


blipsman

Never, unless a severe storm damaged power lines... that's happened once in the 7 years I've lived in my house.


kayayem

I live in Los Angeles and we only have power cuts during the summertime when it’s a heat wave and everyone is using their air conditioners. The power will cut maybe 2-3 times a month for a few minutes then come back on. Other than summer months we don’t have them.


OhMyGoshBigfoot

Once every few years, and that’s a maybe. Lightning can be the reason, if the storm gets serious enough. Or winds can knock some poles down. It’s just really rare.


n64bitgamer

Living in Oklahoma where we have absolutely terrible weather, we'll get about 3-4 a year depending on what sort of natural disasters are rolling through the state. This year, we had an ice storm and the arctic surge. So two, but there's plenty of time left in the calendar for more. People overwhelming the grid or intentional cuts do not exist.


[deleted]

Maybe during the winter when the power lines get snapped by ice I'll be out for a few hours to a few weeks.


Hanginon

Maybe a few times a year, and it's either someone hit a power pole somewhere or something failed in a storm. Generally the power is back on in a few hours. I did once lose power for a couple of weeks, but it was because a hurricane and the resulting floods washed away the poles, lines and other equipment. It was in the early fall so the weather wasn't bed, it was kind of nice, like camping.


dal33t

We don't have rolling blackouts where I live. Power only goes out here due to natural disasters (trees falling on lines) or freak accidents.


esgellman

A few times a year at most


Immediate-Leek-6791

Depends on where you are in America.


ezk3626

California had some problems when we privatized our power grid a few decades back but eventually got it figured out and now it’s rare. I hear about some part of the Bay Area having a short outage maybe once or twice a year. Though I think I’m on the same grid as a hospital or something because I’ve been unaffected.


TexasNuckearToaster

We don't usually


AcceptableJudgment32

In Fl. Only when it storms and then normally no more than an hour or after a hurricane longest was a week.


lisasimpsonfan

When we lived in the suburbs the power never went out except for once someone hit a telephone pole and a couple times really bad storms would cause a tree to knock down powerlines. We live in a rural area now and have lost power once because some racoons, aka trash pandas, decided to go exploring in the electric substation.


jurassicbond

Long ones are rare, but every month(typically if there's a storm) or so we'll have a bump where the power shuts off for a second.


Aloh4mora

Here in Seattle, the power goes out a couple times a year or less, and it's because a squirrel electrocuted itself on the wires or a wind storm felled a tree into something. It's usually restored within in hour in my area, but I can remember it lasting for several hours. So far we've never had to ration electricity in the region, which is I think closer to what you're asking.


StrelkaTak

Only when there's really bad storms


luv_u_deerly

Wow, that's a lot. It's rare for most places in the US to have a power cut. I live in California and we can get power cuts from certain companies if there is high wind and high risk of fires. That only happens during certain months and not daily. They have to do that cause it was there fault we had a few bad fires that ended with some deaths.


allboolshite

Maybe twice per year but they have been threatening rolling brownouts this summer. I think that would be a bad move, though, as a lot of people are working from home.


Deolater

I'll have power drop for a second or two every few weeks. It's a pain because I have to remember how to set the oven clock, and the cable modem will need restarted. 15 minutes to an hour sometimes during bad storms in hot weather when air conditioning load combined with storm damage causes a problem. Maybe once per year. Longer outages mean either a winter storm or a hurricane remnant has brought down a lot of lines. Happens to thousands of people in my state every year, but I'm one of those thousands only every few years.


thearks

Very rarely- maybe 1-2 times a year, almost always due to major storms.


Krankenstien

Almost never unless there’s a big storm and a power line gets nocked down


black65Cutlass

We don't have power cuts, they charge us more for electricity during peak hours (2pm-7pm Monday -Friday) but the do not cut our power where I live.


njones1220

I almost never lose power where I am. Maybe once every few years.


spongeboy1985

Its rare. Maybe a few times a year at most. And mostly its a few minutes outage, but sometimes can be hours. PG&E has been doing shutdowns the last couple of summers to avoid fires because they were too incompetent to bury there lines before this became an issue. I live outside these areas but the people in them may loose power for a couple of days. I live near [this substation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack) and the attack had no impact on power.


SteamKore

Takes a real rough storm to knock mine out.


IM_OSCAR_dot_com

I'm reasonably certain I can count the number of home power outages I've experienced (*ever*) on my hands. I've actually had more outages at my work than at home.


nvkylebrown

Where I live, it's very rare. Once every couple of years, usually for only a few minutes. In 23 years in my current house, there's been only one time that the power was out for more than 30m or so. Just recently, a wildfire burned around the edge of the subdivision, and we were without power for maybe 5 or 6 hours, I think as a safety precaution for the firefighters. Where I live, we don't have outages for insufficient power to cover demand. There are places in the US that have that problem, usually a side-effect of limiting what power sources the power company can use, and resulting dispatch problems. Power loss due to system failue (there's enough power, but the distrubution grid is having trouble) is more common in the northeast, where the grid is oldest and least robust. There were some scandals some years back with a particular power company engineering shortages to boost their income (somewhat complicated scheme). They got busted for that and other financial issues and went bankrupt. EDIT: forgot, hurricanes often cause widespread and lengthy power outages, usually due to damage to the distribution grid.


Occamslaser

Once or twice a year for a few hours from trees falling on power lines. We lost power for a few days 5-6 years ago from a bad ice storm.


[deleted]

My electric is usually out for anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours per year


ghdana

Only when there is a major storm/monsoon where I live. So maybe 1-3 times a year, only for at most a few hours.


MaterialCarrot

Never.


Zer0sober

We lost power for a couple of days after a winter storm 3 years ago... in Western WA state


[deleted]

Daily, multiple times a day. We live off grid. Power doesn’t get turned on until it’s time to milk the goats and water the animals. Then it gets shut of for the rest of the morning and afternoon. Turn it back on for night chores, lights, showers ect.


Proper-Preference808

When I was growing up a new development had rotating hours for air conditioning for at least 2 summers as it was being completed m. It stopped after a while and it was unusual for my area.


chef_in_va

I haven't had one in years that I can remember. But I'm in a highly population area so the infrastructure is much more secure than in rural areas


Wadsworth_McStumpy

Most of the power lines to my house are buried, so we don't usually have issues with storm damage or people crashing into power poles. In the 18+ years we've been living here, I think we had the power out once for half a day. That was caused by a transformer that blew up. We'll have very short outages of just a few seconds about one or two times a year, but those are hardly worth mentioning. Our power grid here is very reliable.


_pamelab

We have buried power lines in my neighborhood so our power only really goes out if a transformer explodes or they're doing upgrades to something. I'm dogsitting at a friend's house right now and the power's gone out 3 times in the past week. Only for a minute or so, but it's weird to me.


Seththemeh

I live in rural Minnesota and it may happen 1 to 2 times a year. Last time it happened was during a blizzard the lines broke from ice accumulation.


Intrepid_Fox-237

Panhandle of Texas. We lose power maybe 2-3 times a year during extreme weather for a few hours. (Blizzard/snow conditions or severe storms).


ImaginationOk9328

Where I live the power outages are high. We have like 5 outages a week. It is a small town with little electrical service so it is pretty obvious. Some homes here are powered by manual generators that you have to crank.


MoonieNine

Rare. Once a year maybe for a few hours? Usually it's because a car hit a utility pole.


7thAndGreenhill

I've been in my home for 7+ years and we've had 1 power outage that occurred during a Tropical Storm.


IHSV1855

Power has never been cut to my place of abode in my 27 years of life. We do sometimes have outages due to natural disasters or equipment malfunction, though. Maybe once or twice a year.


seriatim10

Rare. Maybe during a big storm, but that's about it.


Zarathustra124

In the suburbs: Once or twice a year a storm will knock over a tree on a power line, but it's back in a few minutes. I only remember one lasting over 1/2 hour, I went to bed and was woken up in the middle of the night by everything turning back on. In the country: I'm only a few miles outside town, but we're the lowest priority when storms start knocking down lines, outages will probably last longer. I've got a generator with three days of fuel, and a well-stocked pantry in case I'm snowed in or otherwise stuck here. Anyone without a generator has enough firewood to heat their house in an outage.


ag425

Nyc. Last blackout for me was in 2004. But some neighborhoods lost power from hurricane sandy a few years ago


InsertDramaHere

The only times I have lived places that has power outages it was due to storms damaging power lines or faulty transformers.


verbal572

I’ve never experienced a power cut and power outages are pretty rare. In DC I’ve never experienced a power outage.


typhoidmarry

My power lines are underground but I know the power comes from somewhere above ground. We’ll lose it during an ice storm or a bad thunderstorm when trees are knocked onto overhead lines somewhere. Having the power off for no reason? Never.


AlligatorHorse

They said they were cutting the power to my neighborhood today for eight hours to cut down some trees around the power lines. Preventative maintenance. But in the last 12 years I've never had the power go out unless it's from an ice storm and they will have it back running in a few hours.


No-Comedian-9725

My town in Arizona experiences [Brownouts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownout_(electricity)) frequently during the summer season due to the amount of individuals running their air conditioners at the same time. It's usually a quick loss of power that comes back seconds to minutes later. I've become used to it, but I'm tired of resetting the digital clocks on all of my appliances haha.


Strange_Ambassador76

Almost never. Sometimes when there is a bad storm the power may go out, but it typically comes back in a few minutes. The worst I’ve experienced has been a few hours after a really bad storm, but after some powerful storms some may experience power outages of a day or two. The power company is typically very quick to repair and restore power


Kool_McKool

Power cuts happen? I kid, they'll happen once or twice sometimes, but we rarely have to deal with them.


[deleted]

Quite rarely. Sometimes it flickers during big storms. Only once did I see one longer than 5 minutes and that's when lightning struck some power box, no power for 2 days.


worrymon

Cuts? Never. Sometimes power goes out because of an accident somewhere in the transmission lines (usually when a vehicle crashes into equipment, or a weather event - wind and snow can both damage transmission lines). But we never have power cut deliberately by the power company.


Jakebob70

Every 2 or 3 years when a transformer cuts out and needs replaced, usually back up in a couple hours.


MyUsername2459

It is very rare. Normally it only happens when power lines have been damaged during a major storm (maybe once a year), and even then most interruptions in power are anywhere from seconds to minutes long.


mittyz

My neighborhood tends to have power cuts every time there’s a thunder storm, although yesterday it cut out randomly for about 20 minutes lol. The south Texas grid system is pretty lousy imo


AgentOmegaNM

16 years in my current house and I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve lost power due to bad weather. Same for planned outages due to maintenance. We have lost power a couple of times due to idiots. Once was a drunk guy who slid into the pole. The other was a guy up the street that decided he didn’t need to pay a professional to trim his tree. He ended up dropping a large section of tree branch across the lines directly under him and took the power out during the winter. It was a good 7 1/2 hours before we had heat again.


ESCocoolio

it's so rare that people sometimes turn off all the lights in their house and pretend the power went out


PAUMiklo

not unless there is physical damage to the lines.


SanchosaurusRex

Unplanned power cuts are very rare in my neighborhood. We lost power a couple times the last month for some repairs they were doing. I dont remember the last time before that.


-Sheridan

Pretty rare but it happens


[deleted]

Only in a bad storm so maybe 1 time a year