Typically, but not always. Sometimes, in the minutes immediately after an outage is reported, the system is waiting on additional data before it declares all of a group of customers are impacted by the same issue. When this happens, the map displays multiple bubbles for brief periods. Our dispatchers are trained to recognize these situations when they occur and make sure the crew is headed to where it needs to go.

Electric outages can have several different causes, and while Unitil works hard to maintain its system, things like severe weather and motor vehicles accidents will always have the potential to cut power to customers. A video showing the different ways Unitil restores power to customers can be found here.

Sometimes obstacles blocking access to our power lines can slow the restoration process. That could include downed trees, blocked roads, unplowed or flooded streets or dangerous situations. Conditions throughout the system can also cause delays. Several small scattered outages can be more time consuming to repair because they involve individual stops to reconnect lines to each home.

It could be that your neighbors are served on a different circuit, but there could be trouble in just your section of the line or in the equipment that services you directly. Or, the cause of the outage could be an individual service problem at your home, unrelated to Unitil.

Yes, it will come back. Although your restoration is important to us, sometimes there are more urgent priorities that need to be addressed, such as public safety hazards, critical care, emergency operations centers and communication centers.

The truck may also be on the way to a transmission line, substation or circuit outage that will restore the greatest number of customers at the same time, you included. Our crews work round the clock during an outage, so they will return to your location as soon as they can if you remain without power.

When you report your outage, a customer service representative makes sure that your address is loaded into our outage management system. The computer then looks at all the different calls coming in and takes its best guess based on the information which comes in as to where the trouble originated. A crew is then dispatched directly to the outage. This is another reason why it is so important to call in any outage; the more info which comes in, the better information the computer has and the faster a crew can get where it needs to go.

ETR stands for “estimated time of restoration,” and is our best estimate as to how long it will take to restore power. As estimates are by their very nature inexact, we provide a range of times in order to try and give you a general idea as to when work will be complete and power will be restored.

No public-facing outage map for natural gas customers is planned at this time, though we are constantly reviewing new ways to provide information to customers and will continue to review new options as technology makes them available.

You can receive outage updates / alerts if you have an active MyUnitil account. Set your communication preferences at https://myaccount.unitil.com to receive an email, text or call when your power has been restored.