Power Outages

If your power goes off, we offer these suggestions

1. Check the fuses or circuit breakers in your service panels. If you have breakers, make sure they are in the
“ON” position. ( Not tripped, and not OFF)

2. Look at your electric meter outside. If it has power, you will see a digital display on the face of the meter and you should have power to your main breaker. If there is no display, then call RECC to let us know you have an outage. Call (217) 438-6197 at any time of day for assistance.

3. If the meter has power, and your meter is on a pole or pedestal, check the main breaker panel just below the meter socket. If the breaker is in the “OFF” position, check all of your wiring from the meter pole to your various buildings. If the wiring appears to be okay, reset the breaker to the “ON” position. (If you have an older fuse system, you can pull the main fuses and check to see if they are still good. If a fuse is blown, check the wiring as above and insert a new fuse.)

4. If you still do not have power in the house, you may have a wiring problem at the meter or feeding into the house. You can call RECC to report a problem. A cooperative employee may call you back to walk you through the troubleshooting process and determine whether the problem should be handled by RECC or by your electrician.

5. If a widespread outage is occurring, you may hear a busy signal or be answered by an automatic system that asks for your account information. We will have crews dispatched to make repairs on our system, but you should still give us your information so that we can be sure your outage is not caused by a different problem than the large outage.

6. Once your outage has been reported, it will be dispatched to repair personnel who will restore your outage as soon as possible. Calling back repeatedly will not shorten the length of the outage, but may hinder the efforts of other members who are trying to report outages. You can follow RECC on Facebook or our web page during larger outages for updates or damage reports.

For suggestions on being ready for storm outages, click here.

Get information on planned and emergency outages with Notify 24 alerts.

Keep your contact information up-to-date!

Sometimes we need to contact members when we find problems on their property or want to discuss an issue with their service. We have records of land line and mobile phone numbers for many of our members, but they are not always up-to-date! Please notify us of any changes in your phone numbers, or if you drop a line from service. Thanks for your help!

Help us help you

If your power suddenly goes off, you may see or hear something that can help us identify the problem more quickly. Did you hear a loud bang outside? Do you see a tree limb lying across the power lines? These can be valuable clues for our linemen. Also be sure to report any hazards such as a wire laying across the road or a pole ready to fall over!