Members may experience a longer-than-usual wait time when calling our office, especially during after-hours. Due to heavy snow and outages in other parts of the country, our after-hours Cooperative Response Center (CRC) is experiencing delays (scroll to bottom to read more). As a small co-op with fewer than 30 employees, PPEC is not equipped to handle calls 24/7/365. This 24/7 call staff is used by electric cooperatives nationwide to assist with large volume phone calls.

Instead of calling our office, we encourage PPEC members to report outages and make payments online through SmartHub. Thank you in advance for your patience.

_{Winter Weather Reminders:}

Please stay safe out there, and DRIVE CAREFULLY if you must be on the roads. Slow down! 

Should your vehicle contact power lines, do NOT exit if wires are down, as they may be energized. Call 911 first. Watch this video on how to exit safely only if you must: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIk1OI0o8lU&t=4s

Remember the following tips on reporting outages, ensuring you're prepared for a winter storm, and staying warm in case of an extended outage: https://ppec.coop/preparing-winter-storms

CRC Update (Feb. 16, 3 pm)

All three of their locations have been affected in one way or another which could affect wait times for phone calls:

"We continue to see record volumes as the ice and snow storm continues to move east and record cold conditions persist throughout the eastern half of the US.  The storm systems have produced record cold, snow, ice and tornados which have negatively impacted our membership throughout the US.

 

While our generator is up and running in Abilene, power problems persist throughout the city and region.  The city of Abilene has also shut off the water to residents because of the record cold.  It will likely be another day or two before things get better there.

 

In Tennessee we’re dealing with ice storms and power outages as well while in Minnesota we’re dealing with record cold.  CRC continues to operate as best we can with remote agents and open facilities in TN and MN, at least for those that are able to drive in.  Yesterday we successfully completed over 102,000 calls, the most we’ve ever handled in a single day.

 

To put this number in perspective, it usually takes us 9 days this time of year to complete 100,000 calls.  It appears that today will be another extremely busy day before things start to subside later in the week.  We just wanted to update you on our progress and let you know we appreciate your patience and understanding while we deal with an unprecedented nationwide event that has resulted in the closing of many of our members’ offices."