The reasons for outages can vary, and can affect the length of time it takes to restore service back to your home. Here are some of the most common causes of outages:

• Storms: Wind, heat, ice and snow are the most common causes of widespread power outages.
• Trees: During high winds, or trimming by an untrained professional, limbs can come into contact with power lines and cause interruptions.
• Vehicles: A vehicle collision with a utility pole can cause a power outage.
  
• Animals: Although we place barriers between wildlife and electricity equipment; squirrels and other small animals may still cause a short circuit.
  
• Lightning: When lightning strikes electrical equipment, transmission towers, wires and poles, outages can occur.
  
• Excavation Digging: Sometimes, underground cables are disturbed by digging. It’s important to call 811 before any gardening or digging project.
  
• High Power Demand: During heat waves and other times of unusually high power demand, overburdened electric cables, transformers, and other electrical equipment can fail.
  
• Planned Outages: Occasionally, we need to turn power off in a specific area in order to perform our work. This type of outage is quite rare and usually only affects a few members at a time. Larger planned outages are announced on Boreal and WTIP.

• Report your outage immediately. Do not rely on your neighbors to report your outage.
• Stay away from downed power lines, flooded areas and debris. Treat all fallen wires and anything touching them as though they are energized and immediately report downed lines.
• Turn off all appliances, including your furnace, air conditioner, water heater and water pump. Leave on one lamp to know when power has been restored. That way you can avoid a circuit overload and another outage that may result when power is restored to all appliances at once.
• Keep freezer and refrigerator doors closed. Food will stay frozen for 36 to 48 hours in a fully loaded freezer if you keep the door closed. A half-full freezer will generally keep food frozen for 24 hours. For refrigerated items, pack milk, other dairy products, meat, fish, eggs, gravy and spoil-able leftovers into a cooler surrounded by ice. Inexpensive Styrofoam coolers are also fine for this purpose.
• Follow safe operating procedures for generators. Never operate one inside your home or in an enclosed space, such as a garage.
• Listen to the local radio station on your battery-operated radio for regular news and weather updates. Follow Arrowhead Cooperative on Facebook for regular outage updates.
• Make sure your area is sufficiently ventilated if using portable stoves, kerosene heaters or lanterns.
• Avoid travel if possible, but If you must, please help protect line workers and crews when you see them on the roadside making emergency repairs. Move over from the lane nearest the workers or slow down until you can safely pass the work site.
• When it is hot outside, close drapes and blinds on the sunny side of your house, drink plenty of fluids, take your pets to a cool basement location or go to an air-conditioned location if necessary to stay cool.
• When it is cold outside, open your blinds during the day, cover windows with drapes at night, avoid alcoholic beverages and gather in a central room where there is an alternative heat source, such as a fireplace or kerosene space heater. If the indoor temperature drops to 55°F or below, open your faucets slightly so they constantly drip to prevent pipes from freezing.
• Do not hesitate to contact a physician if you have any health-related questions.