Wilkes County, North Carolina Power Outages, 2015 to 2023

Wilkes County, North Carolina had 32 major outages from 2015 to 2023

Higher outage time among US counties

Residents here averaged 1.89 times the US outage time per person and 1.55 times the North Carolina rate. It ranks 29 of 95 in the state, where 1 has the most. Data confidence: High, with 9 years of records.

3.6major outages per year

9 of 9years with a major outage

81 hrslongest major outage

Oct, Julhardest months

October and July made up 64% of this county's outage time. The largest outage on record began Oct 23, 2017, reached 25,695 customers, and left at least 200 customers out for 80.8 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.

0.25M

0.5M

0.75M

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

Show yearly numbers

Year	Customer-hours	Reported outages	Major outages
2015	72,056	50	1
2016	874,035	71	6
2017	904,713	51	2
2018	265,877	57	6
2019	107,746	44	3
2020	228,563	61	5
2021	46,380	53	1
2022	148,124	67	5
2023	111,994	64	3

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
Oct 23, 2017	80.8	25,695	832,448
Jul 8, 2016	74.0	23,217	697,540
Dec 9, 2018	57.5	3,772	118,677
Oct 29, 2020	37.2	3,867	75,964
Mar 2, 2018	35.8	3,622	57,693

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.