Power outage history
Butler County Missouri
2.6hours
without power for the average customer in a typical year, 2018–2025
88th most of 110 in Missouri 60% 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 Butler's customers who were without power at that day's worst moment.
Year by year
Hours in the dark, per customer
2024 was the worst well-recorded year, at 7.1 hours for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.
Butler, 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 26, 2024 | Tornadoes | 9,072 | 27% | 2.6 d | 2.1 d | 189k |
| Mar 14, 2025 | Tornadoes | 5,379 | 16% | 2.9 d | 2.4 d | 110k |
| Jan 24, 2023 | Winter storm | 2,125 | 6% | 17 h | 8.2 h | 15k |
| Jul 1, 2023 | Thunderstorms | 911 | 3% | 17 h | – | 9.4k |
| May 3, 2020 | Thunderstorms | 3,760 | 11% | 2.8 h | 48 min | 8.6k |
| Jul 12, 2020 | No storm report | 861 | 3% | 9.0 h | – | 7.2k |
| Nov 22, 2019 | No storm report | 1,900 | 6% | 5.2 h | 5.0 h | 6.3k |
| Apr 2, 2025 | No storm report | 746 | 2% | 11 h | – | 6.1k |
| May 4, 2020 | Thunderstorms | 2,240 | 7% | 4.2 h | 2.0 h | 5.1k |
| May 16, 2025 | Thunderstorms | 1,428 | 4% | 5.8 h | – | 4.5k |
| Oct 23, 2021 | No storm report | 709 | 2% | 5.8 h | – | 4.0k |
| Apr 9, 2021 | Thunderstorms | 1,264 | 4% | 7.0 h | – | 3.7k |
| Apr 3, 2024 | Windstorm | 1,485 | 4% | 2.2 h | – | 3.3k |
| Jul 3, 2024 | Heat | 1,679 | 5% | 2.2 h | – | 3.0k |
| Mar 19, 2025 | Windstorm | 826 | 2% | 5.8 h | – | 2.9k |
| Jul 14, 2024 | No storm report | 3,377 | 10% | 1.5 h | 1.2 h | 2.6k |
| Aug 8, 2021 | Tornadoes | 619 | 2% | 5.5 h | – | 2.5k |
| Feb 16, 2021 | Winter storm | 1,052 | 3% | 2.8 h | – | 2.3k |
| Apr 11, 2022 | Windstorm | 599 | 2% | 4.0 h | – | 2.2k |
| Jul 13, 2021 | No storm report | 1,655 | 5% | 1.2 h | – | 2.1k |
| Sep 21, 2022 | No storm report | 1,135 | 3% | 2.5 h | – | 2.1k |
| Dec 2, 2023 | No storm report | 731 | 2% | 2.8 h | – | 2.0k |
| Aug 16, 2024 | Heat | 727 | 2% | 2.8 h | – | 1.8k |
| Jan 9, 2022 | No storm report | 716 | 2% | 2.2 h | – | 1.6k |
| Jun 26, 2022 | No storm report | 1,258 | 4% | 1.8 h | – | 1.6k |
| Oct 29, 2022 | No storm report | 3,340 | 10% | 30 min | 12 min | 1.6k |
| Apr 5, 2025 | No storm report | 791 | 2% | 2.2 h | – | 1.4k |
| Jun 26, 2024 | Flooding | 634 | 2% | 2.8 h | – | 1.4k |
| Aug 26, 2019 | Thunderstorms | 706 | 2% | 2.0 h | – | 1.4k |
| May 25, 2021 | No storm report | 942 | 3% | 1.5 h | – | 1.4k |
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 Butler from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.
- Tornadoes 66%
- No storm on record 17%
- Thunderstorms 7.3%
- Winter storm 4.1%
- Windstorm 3.4%
- Heat 1.9%
- Tropical storm 0.6%
- Flooding 0.5%
Who keeps the lights on
Utilities serving Butler
As each utility reports to the Energy Information Administration for its whole Missouri territory, not this county alone. Outage minutes include major storm days.
| Utility | Type | Outage min / yr | Excl. major storms | Outages / yr | Residential ¢/kWh | Customers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Union Electric Co | Investor Owned | 594 | 119 | 1.18 | 13.3 | 1.1M |
| Ozark Border Electric Coop | Cooperative | – | – | – | 12.3 | 33k |
| City of Poplar Bluff | Municipal | 56 | – | 0.68 | 11.1 | 7.7k |
| Clay County Electric Coop Corp | Cooperative | 228 | 160 | 1.51 | 14.7 | 51 |
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.
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 33,933 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 →