Santa Cruz County, California Power Outages, 2018 to 2023

Santa Cruz County, California had 67 major outages from 2018 to 2023

Higher outage time among US counties

Residents here averaged 4.36 times the US outage time per person and 4.86 times the California rate. It ranks 14 of 55 in the state, where 1 has the most. Data confidence: Medium, with 6 years of records.

11.2major outages per year

6 of 6years with a major outage

221 hrslongest major outage

Jan, Octhardest months

January and October made up 42% of this county's outage time. The largest outage on record began Aug 21, 2020, reached 10,467 customers, and left at least 200 customers out for 221.2 hours.

Outage time per resident, rated California counties

MostLeast

Outage impact by year

Customer-hours without power. 1,000 customers out for 2 hours is 2,000 customer-hours.

2018'182019'192020'202021'212022'222023'23

Show yearly numbers

Year	Customer-hours	Reported outages	Major outages
2018	253,100	102	3
2019	3,450,992	268	11
2020	4,217,280	191	11
2021	2,449,779	244	13
2022	1,013,833	281	6
2023	5,391,678	293	23

When outages hit

Share of this county's customer-hours by month.

10%

20%

30%

40%

JanJFebFMarMAprAMayMJunJJulJAugASepSOctONovNDecD

Largest outages on record

Start date	Hours	Peak customers	Customer-hours
Aug 21, 2020	221.2	10,467	1,342,226
Jan 19, 2021	103.2	23,302	1,193,694
Aug 31, 2020	197.2	5,531	731,682
Feb 24, 2023	168.8	9,440	668,849
Mar 21, 2023	26.5	30,226	511,168

Hours measure how long at least 200 customers in the county were out. Most customers get power back sooner.

Size your backup battery

Start with what you would keep running. Wattages are typical averages, so check your own appliances.

Phones, Wi-Fi, lights, about 60 WRefrigerator, about 60 WChest freezer, about 40 WGas furnace fan, about 160 W

Hours to cover: 24

1,700 Whof battery capacity, allowing for about 15% conversion loss

If anyone relies on medical equipment, plan that with their provider. Run portable fuel generators outdoors only, at least 20 feet from doors, windows and vents. See the outage checklist.

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How to read this

A major outage lasted at least 8 hours and reached customers equal to at least 1% of county residents.
Records cover outages of at least 200 customers in a county. They do not show what happened on your street.
Utilities that do not report can make a county look better than it is. Data ends in 2023. Read the full method.