ScoCo PUD Introduces ‘Estimated Time of Restoration’ Tool

Snohomish County PUD is rolling out Estimated Time of Restoration, or ETRs, onto their outage map. ETRs allow those affected by local power loss to view
when the estimated time PUD crews are expected to have the power restored to a given area.

“When a PUD customer clicks on a segmented outage on the map, a box will display the outage’s cause, start time, how many customers are affected and
the estimated time the power will be restored.”

“Adding ETRs to the Outage Map is a big win for our customers and is a credit to the hard work of our employees,” said PUD GM/CEO John Haarlow in a
press release. “We know that giving customers accurate and fast outage information is key to helping them make informed decisions during an outage.”

The goal is to allow for accurate ETRs to allow PUD customers to be able to plan better during outages; it’s the difference in knowing if you should
hunker down for the night with an extra blanket or light a fire and settle in for the long haul with the family.

However, the ETRs will be suspended during major events. As a PUD customer, it seems counter-intuitive, but PUD goes on to point out that this is “due
to the high volume of outages and unknown conditions facing PUD crews in the field. ETRs will return to the map as conditions improve.” Basically,
that no information is better than potentially misleading information.

The PUD reminds us that their Outage Management System relies on customers reporting their outage, so be sure to call in or flag it online.