Power outage history
Imperial County California
4.4hours
without power for the average customer in a typical year, 2018–2025
42nd most of 56 in California 33% below the national median
Every day since 2015
Eleven years, one night at a time
Each cell is a day. The brighter it is, the larger the share of Imperial's customers who were without power at that day's worst moment.
Year by year
Hours in the dark, per customer
2020 was the worst well-recorded year, at 12 hours for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.
Imperial, hours without power per customer
The record
The biggest outages since 2015
Ranked by customer-hours lost: customers out multiplied by how long they stayed out. Times are local.
| Began | Storm | Peak out | Share | Lasted | 90% restored | Customer-hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 11, 2020 | No storm report | 2,513 | 3% | 15.1 d | – | 695k |
| Dec 12, 2019 | No storm report | 986 | 1% | 13.7 d | – | 260k |
| Oct 15, 2022 | Thunderstorms | 4,696 | 6% | 20 h | 21 h | 92k |
| Sep 19, 2025 | Flooding | 4,555 | 6% | 20 h | 30 h | 67k |
| Apr 5, 2021 | No storm report | 764 | 1% | 2.5 d | – | 45k |
| Aug 25, 2025 | Thunderstorms | 2,444 | 3% | 15 h | – | 33k |
| Jul 13, 2020 | Heat | 1,579 | 2% | 19 h | – | 30k |
| Jul 20, 2021 | No storm report | 742 | 1% | 36 h | – | 27k |
| Oct 6, 2022 | Windstorm | 3,107 | 4% | 14 h | – | 18k |
| Oct 29, 2024 | Windstorm | 2,052 | 3% | 7.8 h | – | 15k |
| Jul 31, 2023 | Thunderstorms | 2,313 | 3% | 6.0 h | – | 11k |
| Mar 30, 2023 | No storm report | 1,004 | 1% | 5.8 h | – | 5.8k |
| Jan 9, 2025 | No storm report | 3,749 | 5% | 1.8 h | 1.8 h | 5.2k |
| Oct 25, 2021 | No storm report | 1,105 | 2% | 3.2 h | – | 3.5k |
| Feb 11, 2020 | No storm report | 1,288 | 2% | 2.5 h | – | 3.2k |
| May 24, 2022 | No storm report | 1,057 | 1% | 2.5 h | – | 2.6k |
| Dec 2, 2021 | No storm report | 2,956 | 4% | 48 min | – | 2.2k |
| Jun 13, 2023 | No storm report | 2,001 | 3% | 1.0 h | – | 2.0k |
| Sep 23, 2019 | No storm report | 758 | 1% | 2.0 h | – | 1.5k |
| Apr 22, 2021 | No storm report | 1,371 | 2% | 1.0 h | – | 1.4k |
| Mar 11, 2025 | No storm report | 748 | 1% | 1.8 h | – | 1.3k |
| Oct 29, 2020 | No storm report | 870 | 1% | 1.5 h | – | 1.3k |
| Aug 4, 2020 | No storm report | 1,700 | 2% | 48 min | – | 1.2k |
| Sep 25, 2019 | Flooding | 756 | 1% | 1.5 h | – | 1.1k |
| Jan 22, 2024 | Flooding | 873 | 1% | 1.0 h | – | 873 |
| Apr 18, 2020 | No storm report | 1,702 | 2% | 30 min | – | 851 |
| Nov 21, 2024 | No storm report | 1,027 | 1% | 48 min | – | 770 |
| Sep 1, 2023 | Flooding | 784 | 1% | 48 min | – | 588 |
| Feb 14, 2023 | No storm report | 759 | 1% | 48 min | – | 569 |
| Aug 14, 2022 | No storm report | 1,145 | 2% | 30 min | – | 500 |
After the peak
How fast the lights come back
Each line is one major outage, from its peak. The amber line is the typical path.
When it happens
The outage clock
Customer-hours out by month (rings, January innermost) and local hour, 2018–2025.
What was happening
Weather behind the outages
Each outage is matched to NOAA storm reports for Imperial from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.
- No storm on record 80%
- Thunderstorms 10%
- Flooding 5.2%
- Windstorm 2.5%
- Heat 2.2%
Who keeps the lights on
Utilities serving Imperial
As each utility reports to the Energy Information Administration for its whole California territory, not this county alone. Outage minutes include major storm days.
| Utility | Type | Outage min / yr | Excl. major storms | Outages / yr | Residential ¢/kWh | Customers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southern California Edison Co | Investor Owned | 545 | 116 | 1.39 | 31.5 | 4.6M |
| Imperial Irrigation District | Political Subdivision | 114 | 56 | 0.72 | 18.7 | 143k |
| WAPA-- Western Area Power Administration | Federal | – | – | – | – | – |
EIA Form 861, latest year each utility reported. Outage minutes are SAIDI, the yearly minutes the average customer goes without power; outages a year are SAIFI.
Next door
Neighbouring counties
- La Paz, AZ 10 h
- Riverside 5.0 h
- Imperial (this county) 4.4 h
- San Diego 3.3 h
- Yuma, AZ 1.5 h
About these numbers
Notes
Outages come from the EAGLE-I record of utility outage maps collected every 15 minutes by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Hours without power are customer-hours divided by the county's 72,691 electricity customers. Averages use well-covered years from 2018. Outages shorter than 15 minutes, and utilities that publish no outage map, are not in the record, so these figures understate the total. How every number is made →