Bullhead City, AZ –After a widespread storm that devastated MEC’s system, and damaged MEC’s transmission provider’s line, a majority of members’ power has now been restored. Line crews and the operations team worked around the clock to get to this point and will continue to repair the storm damage until every member has power.
Last night with wind microbursts reporting over 80 miles per hour, the storm left more than 36,000 residents without power for 20 hours. At 2 p.m. Monday, there were approximately 20,000 residents out of power. Currently, there are 8,000 members remaining without power, with crews continuing to work through the night to restore power to members.
The main reason for the extensive outage was no access to the bulk electric grid. Our transmission provider’s 230 kilovolt (kV) line was down regardless of MEC’s distribution system, which shut off MEC’s ability to distribute power to members. Once connected to the 230 kV transmission line, crews were able to re-energize multiple substations to reroute and restore power to the majority of members.
Please remember, there are many ways to report an outage. You can call our toll-free line at (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.
