Restoring Your Power

Select a topic below to learn more:

Dominion vehicles may drive by without stopping.

Ever see a Dominion vehicle drive by your house during an outage, but not stop?

In the process of assessing large outages, patrollers scout out the damage before work begins. So it is common to see Dominion trucks pass through neighborhoods and leave without restoring power. The information they are gathering helps us plan our work.

Learn why neighbors may have power while you don't.

The storm is over and your neighbor has lights, but you don't?

If your neighbor's lights are on, but you're still in the dark, there is a possibility that your circuit was affected by two problems. The major problem – the one that affected your neighborhood –was repaired. But another problem that affects perhaps only the service to your home could not be detected until the power to the neighborhood was restored. If this is your situation, call us again and let us know.

There's another reason this could happen. While you and your neighbor may live next door or across the street from each other, different power lines may serve each side of the street. Our crews may have repaired one circuit, but not yet begun to work on the other.

Learn about restoration forecasts.

During widespread or extended outages, we issue outage-related updates and restoration forecasts through news releases and updates on this Web site. During large outages, information about service restoration for individual customers may be unavailable.

Although every effort is made to keep customers informed, restoration times may be estimates because of the many variables involved, such as the extent of physical damage, on-going weather conditions or equipment accessibility.

Learn about partial power restoration in your home.

If you have electricity in some parts of your home, but not in others, you may have a blown fuse or tripped circuit breaker. Look at other homes nearby to see if the problem is widespread. If yours is the only house without power, the problem could still lie with the fuse or circuit breaker.

If a fuse has blown or a circuit breaker has tripped, turn off or unplug any appliances, electronic equipment and lights from affected outlets. Install a new fuse or reset the breaker. Then plug in or turn on all the things you unplugged. If the new fuse blows or the circuit breaker trips again, you probably have an overloaded circuit or a faulty appliance. If you can't find the problem, you may need to call an electrician. You can also call us back to describe the problem at 1-888-667-3000.

Disconnect or turn off major appliances like refrigerators, air conditioners and water heaters that could come on suddenly when power is restored. It'll help prevent blowing a fuse or tripping a circuit breaker. Use a battery-powered radio or your car radio to obtain up-to-date information on the storm.