As we went to press on July 8, nearly 3 million Texas residents were without power as Hurricane Beryl made landfall. Beryl, the first hurricane to form in the Atlantic Basin this season, made history as the first hurricane to achieve Category 5 status this early in the calendar year.

Now is a good time to review outage reporting tips and your own personal storm preparedness plan as it relates to electric service.

To report a power outage we ask that you utilize either our text messaging service or our automated outage reporting line.

To report via text, send the word OUT to short code 85700. As long as the cell phone number you are texting from is associated with your electric account, the outage will be logged into our system. That’s why it is a good idea to log into the member portal and review your account information to make sure your contact details are accurate. To report an outage via our automated phone system, dial 252-944-2400. Like the text messaging service, the system will look for a location associated with the number you are calling from. If you are calling from a number not on file, you will need to press zero to speak with an operator but please be aware that during a large outage, wait times can be lengthy.

When an outage impacts more than 100 members, Tideland will push outage notifications and updates via text message and provide additional information on our Facebook page.

We never advise use of social media to report a power outage since those platforms cannot be integrated with our outage management system.

If you need to report system damage or a potentially hazardous situation to the co-op, we ask that you provide address details or a nearby pole tag number so Tideland dispatchers can pinpoint the location when deploying crews. Please let neighbors know you have reported the hazard to reduce reduntant calls to the co-op.

If you have not done so this season, now would be a good time to do a test run of any standby generators to ensure service readiness. More importantly for generator owners, make sure you have a carbon monoxide detector and change the batteries every six months.

Here’s hoping for a safe and uneventful hurricane season in Tideland territory.