Who ya gonna call?
A barrage of calls about the power outage Friday afternoon overwhelmed the Utah Department of Pubic Safety Price Communications Center. Officials say those calls could interfere with response to actual emergencies and recommend calling the appropriate utility instead.
Communications Supervisor Kordine Nelson said there were some 9-1-1 calls about the outage, but most of the calls were placed to the non-emergency number. “It was pretty hectic. We have four lines and they were all busy. There were 102 calls,” and she noted, “We were receiving other calls that require officers to respond.”
To make matters worse, she said Rocky Mountain Power inexplicably referred some calls to the local Public Safety Dispatch Center. She said some callers were quite upset that dispatch personnel could not answer questions about the outage, but the dispatch center is not a utility and does not have that kind of information.
Nelson said calls to dispatch from people who rely on power for their oxygen therapy, for example are appropriate, and if need be, emergency medical personnel can be dispatched. But calls asking general questions about the cause or duration of the outage are misguided and can delay response to real emergencies.
Different suppliers
Price residences and businesses get their power from the City Utility. Customer Service Manager Bret Cammans said the city shops for the most cost-effective source of electric power and is currently getting power from UAMPS, the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems. UAMPS is a political subdivision of the State of Utah that provides wholesale electric-energy transmission to community-owned power systems. Helper City also has a public utility and it too, is a member of UAMPS. The power is “wheeled” over transmission lines owned by Rocky Mountain Power.
Those outside of city limits are likely to be Rocky Mountain Power customers. The utility has a website, rockymountainpower.net, and a toll-free number 1-877-508-5088, for their customers to report a problem or get information about an outage.
But Price residents who have called the hotline in the past were told they weren’t in the Rocky Mountain Power service area because their address didn’t match the utility’s data base of customers.
Now, Cammans reports, a new number has been set up specifically for customers outside RMP’s billing area to call in the event of a power outage. That number is 888-221-7070 and callers should say they are in a “no-match area,” reporting a power outage.