On Tuesday, June 13, 2023, at 4:31 p.m., 2,577 Mohave Electric Cooperative members in Bullhead City experienced a power outage caused by a mylar balloon coming into contact with MEC power lines.
Engineering and Operations Manager Jerry Hardy said, “We would like to thank the member who called the MEC outage notification phone line to inform us of the area with sparking power lines. Reports from members are very helpful in locating outages, especially preventable ones like this one. If you see or hear something that could be an issue, please call our outage notification line.”
This outage affected MEC members on and near the Laughlin Ranch, Bullhead Parkway and Silver Creek areas. On Tuesday evening, MEC crews patrolled the power lines to determine the outage cause and concurrently used a two-step restoral process to re-energize the lines. At 5:17p.m. power was restored to 945 members in the Silver Creek Area, and the remaining 1,632 members were restored at 6:42 p.m.
On Wednesday morning, crews further investigated the area with additional patrolling, drone pole inspections, and analyzed data from the emergency outage software system to confirm the mylar balloon, consistent with the member’s report.
Outage restoration is important to Mohave Electric Cooperative and every effort is made to restore power as quickly and safely as possible. Please remember, there are many ways to report an outage. You can call our toll-free line at 1-844-632-2667, text “outage” to 55050 from a number linked to your MEC account or use our SmartHub® application on your mobile device to report the outage. You can also track outages on our website at: https://www.mohaveelectric.com/outage-center/
Founded in 1946, Mohave Electric Cooperative is a not-for-profit utility providing reliable, cost-effective power to 36,700 members, 43,500 meters, with more than 1,570 miles of line spanning areas from Bullhead City to Topock on the west, Hualapai to Burro Creek to the south, and Nelson to the east.