1:15 p.m., March 21, 2025
Work continues today to restore power to all customers affected by this week’s widespread blizzard outage.
As of noon, OPPD workers and mutual aid partners have reduced the number of customers out to 19,148, down from a peak of 106,000 on Wednesday. Our teams have re-energized nearly 82% of affected customers.
We’re fully committed to restoring every last customer as quickly and safely as possible. Some of the work is slow-going due to the extent of the damage and the slippery, muddy conditions workers are encountering as the snow melts.
We’re working through those problems and have summoned every available resource to help with the restoration.
As our crews and mutual aid partners work, hundreds of others behind the scenes are proactively supporting their efforts. Substation workers are helping to haul materials and equipment. Engineers, electrical service designers and others are running ahead of crews to help identify what supplies and staffing they’ll need at their next assignments, so that everything is ready to go.
A group known as the wires-down team is traveling throughout our territory to help remove broken tree limbs and handle smaller-scale repairs. That frees our line crews to focus on larger neighborhood circuits.
Still others are working to quickly procure all the new equipment we need to help every affected customer. In our Storm Center, a very experienced team is coordinating the overall effort and making sure our workers have what they need to do their jobs.
And that’s not all. As OPPD works to restore power to all customers, our generating plants keep electricity flowing throughout eastern Nebraska.
REPLACING POWER POLES
Some customers have asked how long it takes to replace a broken distribution pole and re-energize its lines.
The answer isn’t simple. If a crew can access the pole with a truck, the job might take 2-4 hours. Dozens of factors affect the time it takes. Is a pole supporting a single-phase wire or a 3-phase? Is it energized or de-energized?
If crews can’t access a damaged pole with a truck, they typically need a special machine to carry the pole and bury it properly. That level of work might take 4-6 hours — and again, it depends on the situation. Is the road leading to the pole blocked? Is the pole surrounded by thick trees? Is it a nice, sunny afternoon? Or 2 a.m., in the middle of a blizzard, on a poorly lit rural highway? Does one pole need to be replaced, or eight? Do you have all the materials you need for the job?
Once a new pole is installed, the crew must verify that power is back on for all customers on that line. This requires close coordination with OPPD’s dispatch center. And above all else, the safety of our workers and the public is our absolute top priority.
To all customers who are still without power, thank you again for your patience. We will continue communicating our best estimates of when we can restore your power, barring any unforeseen circumstances. If you need to report an outage, please contact us online, via our OPPDConnect app or by calling 1-800-554-OPPD (6773).
9:55 a.m., March 21, 2025
Our crews, contractors and mutual aid partners are scattered throughout OPPD’s service district this morning to restore power to all customers as quickly as possible.
As of 9:30 a.m., we’ve restored power to about 76% of the customers affected by the blizzard outage. About 21,928 customers are still out, down from a peak of 106,000. Throughout the course of the 18-hour weather event, 132,000 people lost power at various times.
The conditions we’ve encountered post-blizzard are still challenging. As the snow has melted, the ground has turned muddy and slick in a lot of areas where poles and lines are down. Safety is our top priority, as always.
We’re also acquiring all the parts needed to rebuild damaged equipment. We’re working closely with vendors who supply us with poles and are receiving additional material. Whenever possible, we’re reusing or repairing parts that are still in good shape to help speed up the restoration. We expect that we’ll need to replace at least 1,000 poles throughout the district before this outage ends.
Thank you again for your patience as we work to restore everyone’s power.
BEWARE OF SCAMS
We also want to issue a proactive warning about potential scams. Major disasters tend to attract utility scammers who want to take advantage of customers. These scammers may falsely claim that customers need to pay for equipment or threaten disconnection for alleged overdue bills, even when no such debt exists. Stay vigilant for any person or offer that seems suspicious, and if you have any questions, contact our non-outage number at 402-536-4131. Please only use this number for non-outage calls.
For outage reports, please contact us online, via our OPPDConnect app or by calling 1-800-554-OPPD (6773).
For previous information about this event, click here.
