Benton REA is recognized nationally for its reliable service. Despite Benton REA's meticulous work to keep the lights on, occasional outages do occur. Snow and ice, high winds, floods, fires and lighting can damage power lines and cause unpredictable outages.
Although outages don't happen often, it is a good idea to know the correct procedure for reporting loss of service to Benton REA:
- First, check your electrical panel.
Also check for an exterior main breaker, which is most common with manufactured homes.
Make sure that your fuses and breakers are in working order.
- Second, check to see if your neighbors have power.
This will give REA some idea of the extent of the outage.
Call Benton REA using one of the two phone numbers shown in the chart above. When you call Benton REA, please have your map location, account number, and phone number from your billing statement if possible. Also, please give the name the account is in to the dispatcher. If you have any information about the likely cause of the power outage, such as a broken tree limb or broken power pole, please tell the dispatcher.
DO NOT attempt to touch or move a downed power line.
The dispatcher will ask you a number of questions designed to help identify the source of the problem. Please be patient and answer all questions. Your responses will be logged in a computer program that is then used to locate problems and dispatch repair personnel.
Finally, we ask you to please be patient as crews work to restore power.
When restoring power to members during an outage, we follow the procedures established in our Outage Restoration Plan.
To effectively restore service under extreme conditions, the Association follows an emergency response plan. This plan helps identify how to best utilize the Association's existing labor force, as well as when to call for additional labor or material resources. The plan also specifies the order of priority in which electrical service will be restored. In general, major transmission lines will be placed in service first. Once these transmission lines have been restored, then individual substations will be energized. At this point in the process, the Association will then try to restore power to the main feeder lines. In the event that there are downed lines unassociated with the main feeder lines or that tap the main feeder lines, these lines will be cleared so that electrical service can be restored to the main feeder line. Main feeder lines serving the most densely populated areas or critical loads will be given priority in this restoration process. Once this step has been completed, then individual tap lines, as well as individual outages, will be addressed. During the course of a major outage we often receive calls from individuals who have concerns about why their power is still off while their neighbor's power has been restored. We hope this explanation, relative to our priority for reestablishing electrical service, helps explain these situations. In general, our emergency response plan will restore power to the most number of people in the least amount of time. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion that our restoration plan might cause individuals, but we hope you can understand the logic behind its implementation.
We want to express our appreciation to all the members of the Benton Rural Electric Association for their patience during difficult times and to thank all of the employees for their tremendous effort during inclement conditions.
