In order to serve you better, please select your Dominion Energy location services.
In order to serve you better, please select your Dominion Energy location services.
Find out everything you need regarding outage restoration
When a storm threatens, we support you 24/7. Here are some common answers to questions about what we do before, during, and after outage events.
Getting your lights on as safely and quickly as possible is our top priority. To establish an estimated time of restoration (ETR), we evaluate the information that our customers provide when they report an outage and the damage assessments being continually performed by our field personnel. With this information, we refine our restoration plan and can provide our customers with better informed estimates on when power can be restored.
On occasion, our field personnel crews may find more damage than originally reported, which can take more time to make repairs. When this occurs we will make adjustments to our ETRs, so that our customers always have the latest information to plan their lives.
We're concerned about the well-being of all customers during power outages. Critical facilities which are vital to our communities are prioritized for restoration, such as hospitals, fire and police stations, water purification facilities, etc. You should always be prepared with battery- or manually-powered medical equipment in the event of an outage. For longer outages, we encourage you to have a plan to receive proper care until service is restored.
If you or someone in your household requires the use of electrically-powered medical equipment, use this request form to be added to our medical conditions list. Dominion Energy will proactively notify customers on this list when we are expecting wide-scale power outages due to pending large weather events. This allows our customers to make necessary preparations in advance.
The form requires a physician's statement and signature. You must complete a form each year and we must receive it within 30 days of the anniversary date of the last form you sent. This is important for ensuring that your account remains on the medical condition list.
An electric grid is designed to minimize the number of customers that incur an outage when damage occurs on the grid. For example, when a tree falls across a line during severe weather, only a portion of customers on the circuit experience an outage, instead of everyone on the circuit. This design also helps our field personnel to pinpoint where the damage has occurred, which helps to shorten restoration times for our customers. However, if your neighbor’s power is back on but yours is not, please let us know by reporting your power outage via our Dominion Energy app, the Dominion Energy website (Mobi Link), or by calling 866-366-4357.
As long as conditions are safe, our crews will work around the clock to restore service to our customers. We typically have most of our crews working during the daylight hours when they can be most productive, but we will always have crews working overnight to continue the restoration effort and ensuring public safety.
We also leverage the overnight hours to analyze damage reports, organize the next day’s work and update estimated times of restorations. We will not rest until every customer has had their power restored.
Please call us at 866-366-4357 to report the damage and we will send someone out to investigate.
As always, we ask that you stay at least 30 feet away from any downed power lines or damaged equipment.
You may find additional information on our meter damage and repair guide.
There are several reasons this could occur:
When restoration begins following a severe weather event, our crews focus their immediate attention on responding to public safety issue and restoring power to critical services such as hospitals. You may see our crews bypass some areas in order to respond to these immediate needs.
In addition, we have field personnel whose responsibility it is to assess the damage that has occurred following severe weather. is the first step to getting your lights on. These teams may pass through your neighborhood without stopping, but rest assured they are performing vital work. The information they gather is used to identify and plan repairs so work can be performed safely and efficiently.
Our primary focus after storms is restoring power quickly and safely. As crews restore power, they will cut away trees that have fallen on lines or remove trees as necessary to fix the line or equipment. To move as quickly as possible to the next repair location, the crews will generally leave the debris in place.
There are many causes for outages and as you might expect, severe weather is the leading cause.
Preparing for storms is a priority at Dominion Energy. We understand the impact it has on our customers and are always prepared to respond.
Copyright © 2020 Dominion Energy