Power Out Map
– 0% of Lincoln out 0 customers out in North Carolina

Power outage history

Lincoln County North Carolina

13hours

without power for the average customer in a typical year, 2018–2025

30th most of 100 in North Carolina 2.0× the national median

Worst outage on record Hurricane Helene · Sep 27, 2024 93% of customers out · 90% back in 3.7 days
Hours without power, average customer per year 13h / yr State average 8.3 h · national median 6.6 h
Major outages a year 2.5 Peaks over 10% of customers or 50,000 customers
Typical time to restore 90% 6hours Median across major outages, from the peak
Longest single outage 6.7days Hurricane Helene, over 1% of customers out
Outage hours on storm days 75% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here
Worst year 2024 2.2 days without power, average customer
Electricity customers 25,563 ORNL customer model · 8 well-covered years

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 Lincoln's customers who were without power at that day's worst moment.

20152016201720182019202020212022202320242025
0%100% of customers out

Year by year

Hours in the dark, per customer

2024 was the worst well-recorded year, at 2.2 days for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.

Lincoln, hours without power per customer

LincolnUS median countyNorth Carolina average
0 5 10 15 20 25 4.4 ’15 4.1 ’16 2.4 ’17 10.0 ’18 3.0 ’19 9.0 ’20 2.6 ’21 8.6 ’22 9.8 ’23 54 ’24 7.1 ’25 NC 8.3 US 6.6

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
Sep 27, 2024 Hurricane Helene 23,646 93% 6.7 d 3.7 d 1.2M
Oct 11, 2018 Hurricane Michael 6,008 24% 2.3 d 2.1 d 137k
Oct 29, 2020 Hurricane Zeta 8,551 33% 37 h 32 h 97k
May 8, 2024 Thunderstorms 3,130 12% 22 h 15 h 57k
Nov 28, 2023 No storm report 10,486 41% 5.8 h 5.5 h 54k
Aug 7, 2023 Thunderstorms 4,107 16% 22 h 18 h 52k
Jan 3, 2022 No storm report 3,342 13% 31 h 15 h 49k
Jun 29, 2025 No storm report 6,555 26% 11 h 11 h 45k
Aug 8, 2018 Thunderstorms 2,144 8% 31 h 29 h 45k
Dec 24, 2022 Winter storm 4,805 19% 15 h 7.8 h 28k
Nov 9, 2015 No storm report 2,137 8% 16 h 19 h 26k
Aug 8, 2024 Hurricane Debby 3,425 13% 20 h 11 h 25k

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.

0% 25% 50% 75% 100% peak+24h+48h+72h+96h half back by +12h 90% by +20h

When it happens

The outage clock

Customer-hours out by month (rings, January innermost) and local hour, 2018–2025.

00061218 Jan inside

What was happening

Weather behind the outages

Each outage is matched to NOAA storm reports for Lincoln from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.

  • Tropical storm 61%
  • No storm on record 25%
  • Thunderstorms 12%
  • Winter storm 1.2%
  • Tornadoes 0.6%
  • Flooding 0.5%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving Lincoln

As each utility reports to the Energy Information Administration for its whole North Carolina territory, not this county alone. Outage minutes include major storm days.

Utility Type Outage min / yr Excl. major storms Outages / yr Residential ¢/kWh Customers
Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC Investor Owned 216 172 1.35 13.4 2.0M
EnergyUnited Elec Member Corp Cooperative 169 121 1.56 11.6 124k
Rutherford Elec Member Corp Cooperative 149 135 1.24 13.0 72k
City of Lincolnton NC – – – – 26k

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

Across North Carolina

Where it is darkest

Hours / yr64+

All North Carolina counties →

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 25,563 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 →