– 0% of Smyth out 0 customers out in Virginia

Power outage history

Smyth County Virginia

20hours

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

40th most of 123 in Virginia 3.0× the national median

Worst outage on record Hurricane Helene · Sep 27, 2024 65% of customers out · 90% back in 6.9 days

Hours without power, average customer per year 20h / yr State average 8.7 h · national median 6.6 h

Major outages a year 3.8 Peaks over 10% of customers or 50,000 customers

Typical time to restore 90% 3hours Median across major outages, from the peak

Longest single outage 8.7days Hurricane Helene, over 1% of customers out

Outage hours on storm days 71% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here

Worst year 2024 3.3 days without power, average customer

Electricity customers 18,737 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 Smyth'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 3.3 days for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.

Smyth, hours without power per customer

SmythUS median countyVirginia average

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	12,160	65%	8.7 d	6.9 d	1.2M
Jan 12, 2024	No storm report	2,926	16%	2.4 d	2.0 d	79k
May 6, 2022	Thunderstorms	5,241	28%	28 h	23 h	64k
Jun 17, 2022	Thunderstorms	5,635	30%	2.2 d	23 h	61k
May 17, 2025	Thunderstorms	5,821	31%	37 h	15 h	60k
Jan 11, 2020	Thunderstorms	4,906	26%	41 h	23 h	53k
Jun 16, 2016	Thunderstorms	5,139	27%	23 h	21 h	44k
Jun 17, 2019	Thunderstorms	3,038	16%	25 h	13 h	40k
Nov 15, 2018	No storm report	3,410	18%	33 h	26 h	36k
Oct 20, 2018	No storm report	4,605	25%	13 h	6.0 h	35k
Sep 4, 2016	No storm report	1,865	10%	19 h	1.8 h	32k
Feb 12, 2023	Windstorm	3,238	17%	27 h	19 h	30k
Jun 23, 2016	Thunderstorms	4,504	24%	16 h	11 h	25k
May 29, 2019	Thunderstorms	3,000	16%	24 h	21 h	24k
Jun 14, 2022	Thunderstorms	2,737	15%	21 h	8.8 h	19k
May 26, 2024	Thunderstorms	2,119	11%	27 h	10 h	18k
Jan 27, 2021	No storm report	1,486	8%	18 h	6.0 h	17k
Dec 23, 2022	Windstorm	1,228	7%	34 h	36 h	17k
Jul 13, 2015	Thunderstorms	1,051	6%	21 h	11 h	16k
Dec 11, 2021	Thunderstorms	1,851	10%	24 h	23 h	16k
Apr 1, 2023	Windstorm	1,162	6%	27 h	28 h	16k
Jul 29, 2023	Thunderstorms	2,139	11%	19 h	11 h	15k
Mar 15, 2025	Windstorm	1,448	8%	20 h	7.2 h	14k
Oct 12, 2022	No storm report	2,551	14%	4.8 h	1.8 h	12k
Mar 3, 2023	Thunderstorms	1,055	6%	27 h	19 h	12k
Jul 18, 2015	No storm report	2,659	14%	4.8 h	5.2 h	12k
Feb 18, 2021	Winter storm	1,634	9%	11 h	9.2 h	12k
Jun 18, 2015	No storm report	1,057	6%	15 h	7.5 h	11k
Jul 13, 2019	No storm report	1,842	10%	6.5 h	30 min	11k
Sep 27, 2015	No storm report	553	3%	20 h	–	11k

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

Tropical storm 48%
No storm on record 29%
Thunderstorms 17%
Windstorm 3.5%
Winter storm 1.9%
Flooding 0.8%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving Smyth

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
Appalachian Power Co	Investor Owned	1,116	328	2.36	17.2	468k

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

Grayson 53 h
Bland 43 h
Russell 25 h
Smyth (this county) 20 h
Tazewell 19 h
Wythe 17 h
Washington 13 h

Across Virginia

Where it is darkest

Hours / yr64+

All Virginia 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 18,737 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 →