When severe weather hits, we respond quickly and make repairs that restore service to the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time. Who gets their power restored first? How do we make those decisions?  Bartholomew County REMC’s intent is to restore power as quickly and as safely as possible. These are the steps we take when deciding where to send crews during a widespread outage.

Substations/transmission lines/emergencies

BCREMC has nine substations and two metering points where electricity is sent out over the distribution lines. Any problems with the substations or the transmission lines getting the power to that substation must be attended to first before other damages can be detected and repaired.  During this time, we also respond to emergency accident situations as well. 

Main distribution lines

Distribution lines carry electricity from substations to homes, farms, and businesses. BCREMC checks its main distribution lines if the problem doesn’t involve a transmission line or substation.

Supply lines

BCREMC’s main distribution lines branch off into final supply lines, which are often called tap lines. The crews work supply line outages to restore electricity to the greatest number of members at one time.

Individual outages

Sometimes a problem lies at an individual transformer or on a tap line that serves one meter. These are usually the last to be restored, unless a crew is working on supply line outages in the same area. During a storm, trees are normally the culprit to these individual outages.

Our greatest concern is keeping our members safe and well informed so they can understand and handle outage situations. During widespread outages BCREMC will release news bulletins to the local area radio stations. Also, “Like” BCREMC on Facebook for current updates, and check the website www.bcremc.com, or SmartHub App for the live outage map.