Essex County, Virginia Power Outages, 2015 to 2023

Essex County, Virginia had 11 major outages from 2015 to 2023

Higher outage time among US counties

Residents here averaged 1.74 times the US outage time per person and 1.50 times the Virginia rate. It ranks 49 of 119 in the state, where 1 has the most. Data confidence: High, with 9 years of records.

1.2major outages per year

6 of 9years with a major outage

48 hrslongest major outage

Oct, Febhardest months

October and February made up 46% of this county's outage time. The largest outage on record began Oct 12, 2018, reached 6,717 customers, and left at least 200 customers out for 48.5 hours.

Outage time per resident, rated Virginia 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	14,369	18	0
2016	46,234	20	2
2017	39,415	30	2
2018	196,619	30	4
2019	12,071	16	0
2020	29,094	13	1
2021	33,382	9	1
2022	21,051	21	0
2023	17,825	22	1

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 12, 2018	48.5	6,717	121,158
Mar 2, 2018	34.5	3,532	32,612
Feb 13, 2021	44.5	2,689	27,982
May 15, 2018	19.2	3,318	24,384
Feb 25, 2016	27.5	1,620	19,782

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.