Report it to your utility — that is the whole first step
When the whole street is dark, there is exactly one call that matters, and it is free: your electric utility. A neighborhood outage is theirs to fix, on their equipment, on their clock. No electrician can touch a grid fault, and 911 is for the fire or the injury, not for the fact that the lights are off.
So the first move is to report the outage and then let the utility do its job. Most utilities give you three ways to do it, and any of them works:
- The 24/7 automated outage line — usually a dedicated number, separate from billing, that takes your report by phone.
- The online outage map, where you can report and then watch the restoration.
- The utility’s app, which does both and can push you a notification when power is back.
You report by your service address or your meter number, so you do not need to reach a human or explain anything. Reporting matters even when you are sure the utility already knows: on many systems the count of reported customers is what tells crews how big the fault is and helps them locate it. One quiet street that nobody reports can be the last to get looked at.
Find your utility and its outage number
If you do not already know who your electric utility is, it is the company that sends your electric bill — its name is on the bill and often stamped on the meter on the side of the house. That is worth settling now, on a lit screen, rather than during the outage: put the outage number in your phone and bookmark the outage map today.
One point of confusion in many areas: the company that delivers your power (the wires-and-poles utility) can be different from the company you buy your electricity from (a retail supplier, in deregulated states). Outages are always the delivery utility’s problem — the poles-and-wires company — regardless of who bills you for the energy. The delivery utility’s name is the one on the meter.
Read the outage map and the ETR
Once you have reported, the outage map is where you get answers without calling again. A good map shows you whether the outage is already known, how many customers are affected, the suspected cause, the crews assigned, and an ETR — the estimated time of restoration.
Understand what the ETR is before you plan your evening around it. The first ETR is frequently a system-generated placeholder, issued before a crew has physically reached the damage. Once a crew assesses the fault, the ETR firms up — or slips, if the damage is worse than the initial report suggested. In a widespread storm, every ETR in the region can reset as new damage floods in and crews are re-prioritized to the largest faults first. Check the map for updates instead of calling the outage line over and over; repeated calls do not move you up the queue, and they tie up the line for people reporting new outages.
When “the whole street” is actually just you
Before you settle in to wait, do one sanity check. Look at the map and look out the window. If the map shows no outage in your area and your neighbors plainly have power, then this is not a grid outage — it only feels like one from inside your dark house.
In that case the fault is on your side of the meter: a tripped main breaker, a tripped GFCI, or a lost leg of your service where half the house behaves strangely. That is a different problem with a different fix, and it is the one situation on this page where an electrician, not the utility, may end up doing the work. Start with the breaker-and-meter walkthrough on our page for when the power is out at just your house, which also explains who pays for what along the boundary at the meter.
The reverse is also worth knowing: if your neighbors are dark too, stop troubleshooting your own panel. There is nothing wrong inside your house, and flipping breakers accomplishes nothing.
If someone here depends on power
If anyone in the home relies on powered medical equipment — oxygen concentrators, home dialysis, a powered wheelchair, a CPAP that a night depends on, refrigerated medication — do not wait for the next outage to think about it.
Most utilities keep a medical-baseline or life-support registry. Registering the address in advance does two useful things: it flags you for advance notice before planned shut-offs, and in some territories it moves you up for restoration and outreach during unplanned ones. Register early, because you usually cannot sign up mid-outage.
Be clear-eyed about what that registry is not. It is not a guarantee of faster restoration during a major storm, and it is not a backup power source. If someone’s health genuinely depends on electricity, you need your own contingency in place before the power ever goes out: a charged battery bank sized to the device, a safe outdoor generator, and a specific place you can relocate to. If the outage turns into a medical emergency — a device that has run out of battery with no alternative — that is a 911 call, and you tell the dispatcher that someone is dependent on powered equipment.
Running a generator without hurting anyone
A generator can carry you through a long outage, and it can also kill you if you get two things wrong. Both mistakes are common, and both are fatal.
Carbon monoxide. Run the generator outdoors only, at least 20 feet from any window, door, or vent, with the exhaust pointed away from the house. Never run it in a garage, a carport, a basement, or an enclosed porch — not even with the door rolled up. Generator exhaust is invisible and odorless, and the U.S. Fire Administration notes that more than 150 people die each year from accidental, non-fire carbon monoxide poisoning. The Electrical Safety Foundation warns that CO can kill in as little as 5 minutes at high concentrations. A working CO alarm is the only thing that will warn you in time — if one goes off, get everyone outside first and ask questions later: what to do when a CO alarm sounds.
Backfeeding. Never plug a generator into a wall outlet, and never wire one into your panel without a proper transfer switch installed by a qualified electrician. Doing so pushes generator power backward onto the utility’s lines — “backfeeding” — where it can electrocute the very lineworkers repairing your street, and it can destroy your generator and start a fire when utility power returns. A transfer switch is the only safe way to power the house’s wiring from a generator. Anything else runs an extension cord from the generator directly to each appliance.
Two smaller rules that still matter: let the engine cool before refueling, because fuel spilled on a hot engine can ignite, and keep the generator dry and never operate it in the rain.
How long the fridge and freezer really last
Food is where a long outage quietly costs you money, and the numbers from Ready.gov are worth memorizing. A refrigerator keeps food safely cold for about 4 hours if you keep the door shut. A full freezer holds its temperature for about 48 hours; a half-full one, about 24. Every time you open a door you spend cold air you cannot get back, so decide what you need before you open it and close it fast.
When power returns, throw away anything perishable that has been at 40 degrees or higher for two hours or more, and anything with an off odor, color, or texture — when in doubt, throw it out, because you cannot taste or smell most of what makes spoiled food dangerous. A freezer thermometer, or even a cup of frozen water with a coin resting on top, tells you after the fact whether the freezer fully thawed and refroze.
If it turns out your fridge is warm while the rest of the house has power, the outage is not your problem — the appliance is. That is a different diagnosis, laid out on our page for a fridge that stops cooling.
What you don’t owe, and what you might be owed
You owe the utility nothing for the outage. Restoration is part of the service, and you are not billed for the hours the power was off. Nobody legitimate will call you during an outage to collect a payment to “turn your power back on” — that is a scam that spikes during every major storm, and the tell is a demand for immediate payment by gift card, wire, or app.
The money can actually run the other way. A number of states require utilities to issue bill credits, or to reimburse spoiled food and medication, after outages that exceed a set duration. It is not universal and it is rarely automatic, so ask your utility or your state’s public utility commission whether a credit or reimbursement applies, and keep photos and receipts of anything you had to discard. That is the paperwork that turns a policy on the books into a check in your hand.