Summer is here, bringing with it warm weather and more outdoor activities. Unfortunately, it can also bring severe weather that can cause outages and other issues with our lines. Midwest has a crew On Call 24 hours per day, 365 days per year to make sure any issues are dealt with and corrected promptly. If you have power issues, simply call our main number (308-352-4356) and press ‘9’ to be connected to our dispatcher if it is outside our office hours.
When you call, it is helpful to have as much information as you can to help our dispatchers find your location as quickly as possible. Being able to provide your account number or meter number is the best way for them to locate you. It may be helpful to record those numbers from your bill and keep that information somewhere where it can be retrieved quickly if you need them. Having a legal description or a road address will also help us find the correct location.
If your house is out of power, please call any time of the day or night. It is always our priority to get residences back on as quickly as possible. If you or a loved one have a medical condition that requires electricity for treatment – such as being on oxygen – please let our office know immediately so they can be placed on our Medical Emergency list. Those accounts receive priority if we have a widespread outage.
For non-residential accounts, our dispatchers will probably ask a few more questions as to the significance and urgency of the outage request. Through the summer, we get a lot of calls for irrigation accounts that need fuses replaced. Obviously, those accounts are a huge part of our local economy and the main source of income for many of our members. Thus, they are also important to us. However, we also want to balance that with what is an efficient and reasonable use of our resources. Generally speaking, if our guys can get to the field in daylight hours, we will try to get the account back up and going that evening. As it gets dark outside, you may be asked if it is possible to wait until the next morning for us to get out there. In that case, every effort will be made to get there first thing in the morning.
Jayson Bishop
*Midwest Electric is an equal opportunity provider and employer.*