Whatcom County, Washington Power Outages, 2015 to 2023

Whatcom County, Washington had 40 major outages from 2015 to 2023

Above middle outage time among US counties

Residents here averaged 1.24 times the US outage time per person and 1.54 times the Washington rate. It ranks 11 of 34 in the state, where 1 has the most. Data confidence: High, with 9 years of records.

4.4major outages per year

9 of 9years with a major outage

114 hrslongest major outage

Aug, Dechardest months

August and December made up 40% of this county's outage time. The largest outage on record began Aug 29, 2015, reached 54,372 customers, and left at least 200 customers out for 114.0 hours.

Outage time per resident, rated Washington counties

MostLeast

Outage impact by year

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

0.5M

1.5M

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

Show yearly numbers

Year	Customer-hours	Reported outages	Major outages
2015	1,844,854	61	3
2016	648,044	88	4
2017	854,764	100	7
2018	297,847	100	4
2019	282,361	94	1
2020	600,869	119	7
2021	1,146,570	113	7
2022	497,786	106	5
2023	226,779	80	2

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 29, 2015	114.0	54,372	1,651,098
Mar 10, 2016	37.8	22,878	333,838
Jan 13, 2021	80.5	14,967	323,903
Sep 17, 2021	55.0	15,774	231,670
Feb 4, 2017	85.2	7,645	212,963

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.