Outage Reporting

What to do if your electricity is off
How to change a fuse or reset a breaker
Blinks
Our Dispatch Center

Video - Preparing for an Outage
(produced by Hoosier Energy)

1. If your power goes off, check the lights and appliances in other rooms. If you still have power in some areas, most likely a fuse has blown or a circuit breaker has opened - a warning of overloaded wiring or a defective appliance. South Central Indiana REMC does not repair appliances or maintain the wiring inside the residence.

At a residence or business with an underground installation of power lines, South Central Indiana REMC owns and maintains the lines and cables up to the meter. For a residence or business with an overhead installation of power lines, the co-op's responsibility ends where the service line drops from the pole and attaches to the house. If you have problems with your household or business wiring or appliances, you may need the services of an electrician or appliance repairman.

2. If all your power is off, check to see if your neighbors have power. This will help South Central Indiana REMC determine how widespread the outage may be. It could be a large outage, it could just be your transformer causing the problem, or a main breaker serving just you and several of your neighbors has tripped.
3. If you have a security light that we've furnished, check to see if that light is out. If so, chances are the power has been interrupted at a point away from your home.
4. If you have determined that the outage is not due to a problem at your residence or business, call South Central Indiana REMC at 765-342-3344 or 1-800-264-7362. Dispatchers are on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When there is a widespread power outage, the REMC's telephone lines will be swamped with calls. Our interactive voice response system (IVR) will answer your call when our dispatch center is busy. The IVR is programmed to walk you through the process of reporting your outage location. By using the IVR, we can take many outage calls at the same time and thus, we are able to determine the cause of your outage much quicker.
5. When reporting the power outage, please provide your name, address, telephone number and account number.

* South Central Indiana REMC maintains a list of members who are on life-saving equipment such as respirators, kidney machines, etc.

1. First, disconnect lamps and appliances in use when circuit went out.
2. Make sure your hands are dry and stand on a dry board or rubber pad, if possible. Open main switch or pull out section of panel labeled "main" in the service entrance, to cut off current while working at the branch circuit box.
3. Identify the blown fuse. When a fuse blows, the transparent section becomes cloudy or blackened.
4. Replace the blown fuse with a new one of proper size. The smaller sizes screw in and out just like light bulbs. If the blown fuse is a cartridge type, located in the pull-out section, it can be removed with hand pressure.
5. Close the main switch, or replace pull-out section, to restore service. Throw away the blown fuse.

NEVER put a penny behind a fuse. There is extreme danger that your house or business will burn down.

To reset a circuit breaker: move handle to OFF position. Push handle past OFF position. Return handle to ON position.

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Blinks

Power supply occurrences that were unnoticed years ago are "reported" today by the many electronic devices all around us. Before digital clocks we never noticed these "blinks." Now these events seem to happen all the time. They are not more frequent, but we are more aware of them.

It might surprise you to know that most power quality problems begin right in the home or business. A spike (a.k.a. transient surge) may occur in the building's wiring when electric motors, like those on the refrigerator or air conditioner, start up. Other problems may come from faulty wiring, loose connections, poor grounding and inadequate wire size. These conditions can cause voltage drops, momentary outages (blinks), or electrical noise.

Many times, having the power blink is better than the alternative - having it go out completely. Blinks are sometimes caused by devices designed to protect the electrical system. These devices are called "reclosers." Reclosers essentially act like the circuit breakers in your home, with one major difference. They reset themselves after "breaking" the circuit. The intent is that a tree touching the line, or other problem, will cause the recloser to open. The device will reset itself, and power will once again flow down the line.

If the problem has cleared the line, power will stay on. If the problem still exists, the recloser will operate again. After trying three times, most reclosers are designed to stay open until the problem is fixed and the device is manually reset. The opening and closing of the recloser is almost instantaneous and is often not even noticed. The alternative to using reclosers is to use fuses on each line. While greater use of fuses would result in fewer blinks, it would also create more outages.

SCI REMC is constantly evaluating our power lines to identify potential blink-causing problems so that we can take preventative measures. While we may not be able to prevent all blinks, please let us know if your home or business experiences an excessive number of them.

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