Power Out Map
– 0% of Dare out 0 customers out in North Carolina

Power outage history

Dare County North Carolina

7.9hours

without power for the average customer in a typical year, 2018–2025

54th most of 100 in North Carolina 1.2× the national median

Worst outage on record Hurricane Dorian · Sep 6, 2019 100% of customers out · 90% back in 34 hours
Hours without power, average customer per year 7.9h / yr State average 8.3 h · national median 6.6 h
Major outages a year 5.3 Peaks over 10% of customers or 50,000 customers
Typical time to restore 90% 2hours Median across major outages, from the peak
Longest single outage 4.3days Hurricane Matthew, over 1% of customers out
Outage hours on storm days 66% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here
Worst year 2019 34 hours without power, average customer
Electricity customers 23,623 ORNL customer model · 8 well-covered years

Every day since 2015

Eleven years, one night at a time

Each cell is a day. The brighter it is, the larger the share of Dare's customers who were without power at that day's worst moment.

20152016201720182019202020212022202320242025
0%100% of customers out

Year by year

Hours in the dark, per customer

2019 was the worst well-recorded year, at 34 hours for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.

Dare, hours without power per customer

DareUS median countyNorth Carolina average
0 10 20 30 40 50 1.1 ’15 37 ’16 8.6 ’17 6.1 ’18 34 ’19 7.2 ’20 2.7 ’21 2.3 ’22 2.6 ’23 2.9 ’24 5.1 ’25 NC 8.3 US 6.6

The record

The biggest outages since 2015

Ranked by customer-hours lost: customers out multiplied by how long they stayed out. Times are local.

Began Storm Peak out Share Lasted 90% restored Customer-hours
Sep 6, 2019 Hurricane Dorian 23,623 100% 3.1 d 34 h 653k
Oct 9, 2016 Hurricane Matthew 20,894 88% 4.3 d 2.5 d 643k
Sep 3, 2016 Hurricane Hermine 15,648 66% 2.0 d 28 h 189k
Jul 28, 2017 No storm report 7,701 33% 20 h 1.2 h 142k
Oct 11, 2018 Hurricane Michael 7,979 34% 45 h 14 h 63k
Aug 2, 2020 No storm report 8,792 37% 11 h 10 h 47k
Oct 12, 2019 No storm report 7,943 34% 6.5 h 12 min 46k
Jun 29, 2019 No storm report 7,702 33% 4.8 h 6.5 h 24k
Oct 28, 2025 Flooding 8,076 34% 3.0 h 3.0 h 24k
Jan 9, 2024 Thunderstorms 1,694 7% 18 h 5.2 h 19k
Aug 4, 2020 Hurricane Isaias 3,420 14% 9.2 h 5.0 h 19k
Oct 30, 2020 Hurricane Zeta 7,366 31% 3.0 h 7.0 h 17k

After the peak

How fast the lights come back

Each line is one major outage, from its peak. The amber line is the typical path.

0% 25% 50% 75% 100% peak+24h+48h+72h+96h half back by +4h 90% by +6h

When it happens

The outage clock

Customer-hours out by month (rings, January innermost) and local hour, 2018–2025.

00061218 Jan inside

What was happening

Weather behind the outages

Each outage is matched to NOAA storm reports for Dare from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.

  • Tropical storm 60%
  • No storm on record 34%
  • Thunderstorms 2.4%
  • Flooding 2.0%
  • Winter storm 1.1%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving Dare

As each utility reports to the Energy Information Administration for its whole North Carolina territory, not this county alone. Outage minutes include major storm days.

Utility Type Outage min / yr Excl. major storms Outages / yr Residential ¢/kWh Customers
Virginia Electric & Power Co Investor Owned 286 137 1.49 12.7 109k
Cape Hatteras Elec Member Corp NC 2,622 250 14.43 14.7 94k
Tideland Electric Member Corp Cooperative 205 164 2.49 16.4 22k

EIA Form 861, latest year each utility reported. Outage minutes are SAIDI, the yearly minutes the average customer goes without power; outages a year are SAIFI.

Next door

Neighbouring counties

Across North Carolina

Where it is darkest

Hours / yr64+

All North Carolina counties →

About these numbers

Notes

Outages come from the EAGLE-I record of utility outage maps collected every 15 minutes by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Hours without power are customer-hours divided by the county's 23,623 electricity customers. Averages use well-covered years from 2018. Outages shorter than 15 minutes, and utilities that publish no outage map, are not in the record, so these figures understate the total. How every number is made →