Watauga County, North Carolina Power Outages, 2015 to 2023

Watauga County, North Carolina had 4 major outages from 2015 to 2023

Lower outage time among US counties

Residents here averaged 0.33 times the US outage time per person and 0.27 times the North Carolina rate. It ranks 90 of 95 in the state, where 1 has the most. Data confidence: High, with 9 years of records.

0.4major outages per year

3 of 9years with a major outage

66 hrslongest major outage

Jul, Dechardest months

July and December made up 52% of this county's outage time. The largest outage on record began Jul 8, 2016, reached 11,689 customers, and left at least 200 customers out for 65.8 hours.

Outage time per resident, rated North Carolina counties

MostLeast

Outage impact by year

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

50K

100K

150K

200K

2015'152016'162017'172018'182019'192020'202021'212022'222023'23

Show yearly numbers

Year	Customer-hours	Reported outages	Major outages
2015	4,691	11	0
2016	185,739	31	1
2017	32,644	31	0
2018	61,102	44	2
2019	29,236	25	0
2020	11,060	20	0
2021	17,620	14	1
2022	37,492	32	0
2023	18,127	31	0

When outages hit

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

20%

40%

60%

80%

JanJFebFMarMAprAMayMJunJJulJAugASepSOctONovNDecD

Largest outages on record

Start date	Hours	Peak customers	Customer-hours
Jul 8, 2016	65.8	11,689	166,744
Mar 2, 2018	4.2	5,195	20,362
Aug 17, 2021	15.0	1,377	9,586
Dec 23, 2022	6.5	6,029	8,586
Nov 16, 2018	13.2	978	7,352

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.