Power outages can be caused by many things including, but not limited to, the following:

Storms

Wind, heat, ice, and snow are the most common causes of widespread power outages.

Lightning

When lightning strikes transmission towers, wires, and poles, outages occur.

Animals

Squirrels, birds, and other small animals are a common cause for power lines to short circuit.

Trees

During high winds, or trimming by an untrained professional, limbs can come into contact with power lines, causing power interruptions.

Excavation Digging

Underground cables are commonly disturbed by digging. Practice safety when you dig and always call Iowa One Call first at 811.

High Power Demand

During heat waves and other times of unusually high power demand, overburdened electric cables, transformers, and other electrical equipment can melt and fail.

Vehicles

Occasionally, vehicle accidents with a utility pole cause power outages.

If you experience a power outage or notice a problem with our power lines, call us at 1.866.242.4232, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Power blinks, or momentary power flickers, occur when an obstruction, like a tree limb, animal, or vehicle, comes into contact with a power pole, line or transformer.To minimize the possibility of damage to the utility system or your home, a circuit breaker interrupts the flow of electricity for a fraction of a second.

If the object remains on the line, the breaker opens and tries to reclose two more times before the power goes out. At this point, a lineman must be dispatched to remove the obstruction and manually reset the breaker.

Without this feature designed into the system, very brief interruptions would result in outages lasting much longer.