Storm Center

Priority Treatment

No employees, managers, or directors of Nueces Electric Cooperative receive priority treatment for service restoration. However, Nueces Electric Cooperative does maintain a priority restoration list for member-consumers who rely on life support equipment. Registration for this list must be done BEFORE the storm or crisis, with proper physician authorization. Members should contact NEC for more information before the next crisis or storm. Registration must be renewed annually or members are removed from the list. Nueces Electric Cooperative also maintains a priority list for any business and commercial consumers whose operations have an impact on public health and safety. These may include healthcare facilities, stores on which the public depends for supplies, utilities, etc. (Note: Even these priority registrants may need to wait a long time for damage repairs and power restoration. Back-up power systems and/or evacuation are strongly recommended.)

Service Restoration Process

As soon as possible, Nueces Electric Cooperative will restore electric service to the priority consumers and facilities, and then complete its general emergency restoration procedures as outlined below.

1. Nueces Electric Cooperative makes a determination of the severity of damage and calls for other electric cooperatives (from Texas or even other states) to send crews, trucks, supplies, and equipment to help. Contractors will likely also be used.
2. Transmission towers and lines supply power to 17 transmission substations in the Nueces Electric Cooperative area. These lines and substations are maintained by our Generation & Transmission Cooperative, South Texas Electric Cooperative, based in Nursery, near Victoria, TX. These lines seldom fail, but they can be damaged by a hurricane or tornado. Thousands of people could be served by one high-voltage transmission line. If one of these lines receives damage, it would get attention first.
3. An Nueces Electric Cooperative-area substation may serve a couple thousand consumer meters. When a major outage occurs, the substations are checked first. As noted above, these substations are maintained by our Generation & Transmission Cooperative, South Texas Electric Cooperative, based in Nursery, near Victoria, TX.
4. Main and secondary distribution supply lines, or feeders, are checked next if the problem can’t be isolated at the substation. These supply lines carry electricity away from the substation to a group of consumers. When power is restored at this stage, all consumers served by this supply line could see the lights come on, as long as there is no problem farther down the line.
5. The final supply lines, or tap lines, carry power to the utility poles or underground transformers outside homes or other buildings. Line crews fix the remaining outages based on restoring service to the greatest number of members.
6. Sometimes damage will occur on the service line between your house or business and the transformer on the nearby pole. This can explain why you have no power when your neighbor does. NEC needs to be notified if damage is here so a service crew can repair it.
7. Members themselves (not Nueces Electric Cooperative) are responsible for damage to the service installation on the building. Nueces Electric Cooperative can’t fix problems here – you’ll need to call a licensed electrician.