Whose Power Does APS Restore First During Major Outages

When a major storm disrupts service to a large number of customers, our first concern is safety.  APS has a very specific plan to restore electric service to our customers.

During storm restoration, facilities that are essential to the health and welfare of the community are given priority. These facilities include:

• hospitals
• health care providers
• police
• fire
• news media

After service is restored to priority customers, our strategy is to do whatever it takes to restore the most people’s power back on the quickest. When making a decision on where power should be restored first, we look at the amount of customers that are affected by the outage. If we have a choice to restore 2,000 customers, or 100 customers, we would first work to get the 2,000 customers up and running.

There are other factors that can impact the time of power restoration: weather conditions, accessibility to damaged areas, time of day, and environmental issues. Since these factors can impact outages differently, it can be difficult to predict restoration times.