Power outage history
Chesapeake City Virginia
4.2hours
without power for the average customer in a typical year, 2018–2025
111th most of 123 in Virginia 35% 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 Chesapeake'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.
Chesapeake, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 8, 2016 | Hurricane Matthew | 37,135 | 36% | 2.9 d | 34 h | 1.0M |
| Aug 4, 2020 | Hurricane Isaias | 57,143 | 55% | 47 h | 28 h | 801k |
| Oct 11, 2018 | Hurricane Michael | 19,883 | 19% | 44 h | 25 h | 397k |
| Apr 13, 2020 | Windstorm | 36,005 | 34% | 28 h | 12 h | 232k |
| Jun 20, 2019 | Thunderstorms | 24,384 | 23% | 20 h | 7.2 h | 99k |
| Sep 6, 2019 | Hurricane Dorian | 21,384 | 20% | 13 h | 6.8 h | 78k |
| Jan 9, 2024 | Windstorm | 10,924 | 10% | 18 h | 10 h | 69k |
| Sep 3, 2016 | Hurricane Hermine | 15,556 | 15% | 14 h | 4.5 h | 66k |
| Jan 4, 2018 | Winter storm | 11,106 | 11% | 13 h | 8.5 h | 55k |
| Mar 2, 2018 | Windstorm | 6,984 | 7% | 16 h | 12 h | 48k |
| May 16, 2025 | Thunderstorms | 8,338 | 8% | 4.5 h | 3.2 h | 27k |
| Apr 6, 2017 | Thunderstorms | 8,238 | 8% | 7.8 h | 7.5 h | 25k |
| Sep 30, 2022 | Hurricane Ian | 5,434 | 5% | 10 h | 13 h | 23k |
| Jun 16, 2017 | No storm report | 9,666 | 9% | 3.8 h | 3.5 h | 19k |
| Aug 4, 2019 | No storm report | 4,262 | 4% | 5.0 h | – | 17k |
| Feb 7, 2020 | Thunderstorms | 5,469 | 5% | 4.5 h | 7.5 h | 16k |
| Aug 4, 2017 | No storm report | 5,317 | 5% | 2.8 h | 2.5 h | 14k |
| Dec 18, 2016 | No storm report | 3,890 | 4% | 3.5 h | – | 13k |
| Aug 12, 2019 | No storm report | 5,153 | 5% | 2.8 h | 2.8 h | 13k |
| Aug 22, 2019 | Thunderstorms | 3,290 | 3% | 5.0 h | – | 12k |
| Mar 22, 2022 | No storm report | 5,886 | 6% | 5.2 h | 8.0 h | 12k |
| Jul 9, 2023 | No storm report | 3,913 | 4% | 7.0 h | – | 11k |
| Feb 21, 2017 | No storm report | 10,950 | 10% | 1.5 h | 1.0 h | 11k |
| Aug 1, 2021 | Flooding | 10,186 | 10% | 2.8 h | 2.5 h | 11k |
| Sep 5, 2019 | No storm report | 5,031 | 5% | 3.5 h | 3.8 h | 11k |
| May 18, 2024 | No storm report | 8,152 | 8% | 2.0 h | 2.0 h | 11k |
| May 10, 2017 | No storm report | 6,625 | 6% | 2.0 h | 2.0 h | 10k |
| Jun 19, 2025 | No storm report | 3,661 | 4% | 6.5 h | – | 10k |
| Sep 10, 2017 | No storm report | 5,027 | 5% | 2.5 h | 2.0 h | 10k |
| Oct 4, 2018 | No storm report | 7,267 | 7% | 2.0 h | 1.8 h | 9.9k |
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 Chesapeake from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.
- Tropical storm 53%
- No storm on record 21%
- Windstorm 14%
- Thunderstorms 7.8%
- Winter storm 2.7%
- Flooding 0.8%
Who keeps the lights on
Utilities serving Chesapeake
As each utility reports to the Energy Information Administration for its whole Virginia territory, not this county alone. Outage minutes include major storm days.
| Utility | Type | Outage min / yr | Excl. major storms | Outages / yr | Residential ¢/kWh | Customers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virginia Electric & Power Co | Investor Owned | 307 | 144 | 1.78 | 15.2 | 2.4M |
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
- Suffolk 8.0 h
- Currituck, NC 6.6 h
- Camden, NC 5.5 h
- Portsmouth 5.0 h
- Virginia Beach 5.0 h
- Chesapeake (this county) 4.2 h
- Norfolk 3.3 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 104,567 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 →