Winter Storm Power Outage: What to Do When You Lose Power

First: is it your house, or the whole street?

Check whether neighbors also have power. If the outage is neighborhood-wide, it's a utility issue — report it to your utility company, not an electrician. If your neighbors have power and you don't, the problem is inside your home's service or panel, and that's when an electrician matters.

Signs it's a utility outage, not your wiring

• Neighbors are also without power
• No unusual smells, sounds, or visible damage at your panel or meter
• Streetlights in your area are also out
• Downed lines or a damaged utility pole are visible nearby — stay away and report it, do not touch

Signs it's your electrical system, not the utility

• Neighbors have power and you don't
• A breaker keeps tripping the moment it's reset
• Burning smell, buzzing, or visible damage at the panel or meter base
• Power went out right after running space heaters or high-draw appliances
• Ice or a fallen branch visibly damaged your service line where it connects to the house (the weatherhead or mast) — this is a safety hazard, treat it as live and stay clear

Space heaters are the most common winter overload

A single space heater can draw close to the limit of a standard 15-amp circuit by itself. Run two on the same circuit, or add it to a circuit already carrying other load, and a tripped breaker is the system working correctly, not failing. Repeated trips on the same breaker — even after resetting — is a sign to have the circuit checked rather than keep resetting it.

What to do while you wait, safely

• If a breaker trips once, reset it. If it trips again immediately, stop and unplug what was running on it
• Never use a generator, camp stove, or charcoal grill indoors or in a garage for heat — carbon monoxide risk is the leading cause of winter storm deaths after cold exposure itself
• If a service line or weatherhead is damaged, stay away from it and treat it as energized even if the power is out — report it to your utility
• Keep a battery or crank-powered CO detector on hand if you're using any backup heat source

When to call an electrician vs. your utility

Call your utility for anything upstream of your meter — downed lines, area-wide outages, damaged poles. Call a licensed electrician for anything at or past your panel — repeated breaker trips, burning smells, damage to your service mast or meter base, or power loss isolated to your property while neighbors have power.

Final thoughts

Most winter power problems are either a utility-side outage that just needs time, or an overloaded circuit that needs a lighter load — not an emergency repair. The cases that do need an electrician immediately are damage to your service entrance, burning smells, or a breaker that won't hold after being cleared of extra load. When in doubt about damage near your meter or weatherhead, treat it as live and call a professional rather than investigate it yourself.