3:45 p.m., June 29, 2023
As our crews work to restore the remaining power outages from early morning storms, they are also responding to a circuit lockout impacting 258 customers in Sarpy County. These customers are within the boundaries of La Platte Rd. and Merrill Mission Rd., between 36th St .and 57th St. They lost power at approximately 3:31 p.m. We have initial reports that a dump truck may have hit an overhead wire at 65th & Platteview Rd. Our troubleshooters are investigating. We will post updates here as we learn more.
12:30 p.m. Outages are now down to nearly 1,100, with Douglas County the most impacted. Our crews continue to work safely to restore power as quickly as they can.
11:40 a.m. Our crews continue to troubleshoot and make repairs to restore power to customers. Outages are down to about 2,600 at this time. Most of those are in eastern Cass County, which had broken utility poles caused by this morning’s weather, and Douglas County. Many of the current outages are in Benson, North Omaha, and Florence, where there are a large number of mature trees were impacted by lightning and wind.
We will keep working to restore power as quickly as safely possible, providing updates here as we learn more from our team.
10:05 a.m. Our crews are making steady progress with restoring power outages this morning, with 4,633 currently without power.
Restoration with these types of outages takes longer than making one fix to restore power to a large number of customers. The kind of damage we are seeing, caused by wind and lightning, involves many individual repairs. And with a lot of these repairs, each one only restores power to a small number of customers. The tasks involved can be very tedious. In addition, outages in rural areas involve more travel time between repairs.
We greatly appreciate our customers patience as we work through these issues to restore power as quickly as safely possible. If you are without power and have not yet reported it, please be sure to do so so that OPPD is aware and can respond. You can report it online or by calling 1-800-554-OPPD (6773).
9:40 a.m. Our crews continue to work throughout nine of our 13 counties experiencing power outages in the wake of morning thunderstorms. We began receiving outage reports aorund 5:15 a.m. Most of the trouble we are seeing is related to lightning; however, wind also contributed in some areas.
Currently, more than 5,100 customers are without power. Of those, more than 3,200 are in Douglas County, and nearly 1,600 are in Cass County. The county with the next greatest number of outages is Sarpy, with nearly 140 customers still without power.
8:05 a.m. We now have nearly 5,000 customers without power throughout our service territory as thunderstorms roll through the area. Outages began to pop up about 5:15 a.m.
More than 2,300 of these outages are in Douglas County. More than 1,700 of those are in Cass County, where there are reports that utility poles may be broken near the Murray area. And nearly 300 are in Saunders County. The other outages are scattered throughout several counties. The main problem we are dealing with is lightning; however, wind kicking up in some areas is also causing some issues.
We remind our customers, if you experience a power outage, report it online or by calling 1-800-554-OPPD (6773), so OPPD knows about it and can respond.
7:35 a.m. OPPD troubleshooters are responding to more than 2,000 power outages this morning, as a line of storms moves through our service territory. The highest number of outages are in Cass County righ now. Lightning is the main culprit. However, winds are going to be picking up, as well, with most of our area under a severe thunderstorm warning in effect until 8 a.m. Winds could reach up to 60 or 65 miles per hour. If you experience a power outage, be sure and report it online or by calling 1-800-554-OPPD (6773), so we are aware and can respond.
