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

Power outage history

Polk County North Carolina

62hours

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

2nd most of 100 in North Carolina 9.5× the national median

Worst outage on record Hurricane Helene · Sep 27, 2024 100% of customers out · 90% back in 11.5 days
Hours without power, average customer per year 62h / yr State average 8.3 h · national median 6.6 h
Major outages a year 12.9 Peaks over 10% of customers or 50,000 customers
Typical time to restore 90% 2hours Median across major outages, from the peak
Longest single outage 18.7days May 29, 2025, over 1% of customers out
Outage hours on storm days 79% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here
Worst year 2024 10.2 days without power, average customer
Electricity customers 5,215 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 Polk'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 10.2 days for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.

Polk, hours without power per customer

PolkUS median countyNorth Carolina average
0 100 200 300 8.2 ’15 6.2 ’16 31 ’17 80 ’18 18 ’19 79 ’20 16 ’21 12 ’22 23 ’23 245 ’24 25 ’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 26, 2024 Hurricane Helene 5,215 100% 17.1 d 11.5 d 1.2M
Oct 29, 2020 Hurricane Zeta 5,215 100% 4.6 d 3.5 d 339k
Dec 8, 2018 Winter storm 5,215 100% 4.7 d 3.6 d 312k
Oct 8, 2017 Hurricane Nate 3,302 63% 37 h 26 h 62k
May 29, 2025 No storm report 543 10% 18.7 d 21 h 39k
Oct 11, 2018 Hurricane Michael 3,493 67% 40 h 4.8 h 36k
Jan 20, 2019 No storm report 4,593 88% 31 h 9.8 h 32k
Dec 10, 2023 No storm report 2,968 57% 22 h 13 h 30k
Oct 29, 2017 No storm report 1,377 26% 28 h 16 h 17k
Apr 13, 2020 Thunderstorms 1,817 35% 40 h 13 h 16k
Aug 12, 2023 Thunderstorms 1,723 33% 23 h 33 h 16k
Sep 11, 2017 Windstorm 617 12% 46 h 28 h 15k

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 +10h 90% by +22h

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 Polk from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.

  • Tropical storm 62%
  • No storm on record 21%
  • Winter storm 13%
  • Thunderstorms 2.3%
  • Flooding 0.8%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving Polk

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
Rutherford Elec Member Corp Cooperative 149 135 1.24 13.0 72k
Broad River Electric Coop, Inc Cooperative – – – 16.6 490

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 5,215 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 →