A squirrel helped Owensboro Municipal Utilities test their new electric outage alert service on Thursday when it caused nearly 2,500 customers to temporarily lose service.
OMU launched the service on December 5 and is already seeing increased communication and decreased call volume to the company, officials reported Thursday.
General Manager Tim Lyons said that text messages were sent last week to the roughly 20,500 OMU customers to let them know the service was up. He said it’s an opt-in system, meaning any customers wanting to receive text messages about outages and response times can sign up for the service (you can do so here). He noted that about 1,600 customers opted out.
OMU Communication and Public Relations Manager Sonya Dixon said that the text alerts from the service are personal to the area where the homeowner lives, meaning registrants will not receive updates that do not affect their area.
The outage early Thursday morning affected about 2,400 customers in the Ford Avenue and Stratford Drive areas and was caused by a squirrel. OMU recently reported squirrels are one of the leading reasons for their power outages.
The service is currently only available for electrical outages. The service also allows customers to learn about the current power status and report outages in their neighborhood to aid OMU in making timely responses to the area.
“That’s one of the things that’s helpful,” Dixon said. “[Customers are] getting the information directly sent to them. They’re not having to necessarily call it or report it so it reduces that and also helps with confirmation with the system.”
