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

Power outage history

Swain County North Carolina

13hours

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

35th most of 100 in North Carolina 1.9× the national median

Worst outage on record Hurricane Helene · Sep 27, 2024 20% of customers out · 90% back in 2.0 days
Hours without power, average customer per year 13h / yr State average 8.3 h · national median 6.6 h
Major outages a year 6.8 Peaks over 10% of customers or 50,000 customers
Typical time to restore 90% 5hours Median across major outages, from the peak
Longest single outage 2.8days Hurricane Helene, over 1% of customers out
Outage hours on storm days 33% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here
Worst year 2020 20 hours without power, average customer
Electricity customers 12,084 EAGLE-I 2024 count · 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 Swain'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

2020 was the worst well-recorded year, at 20 hours for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.

Swain, hours without power per customer

SwainUS median countyNorth Carolina average
0 5 10 15 20 25 7.3 ’15 8.2 ’16 18 ’17 8.1 ’18 6.4 ’19 20 ’20 9.6 ’21 17 ’22 9.8 ’23 17 ’24 14 ’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 26, 2024 Hurricane Helene 2,461 20% 2.8 d 2.0 d 60k
May 27, 2017 Thunderstorms 2,839 23% 44 h 22 h 56k
Mar 21, 2017 No storm report 3,705 31% 23 h 17 h 56k
Jan 11, 2020 Thunderstorms 3,430 28% 26 h 21 h 48k
May 6, 2022 Tornadoes 3,427 28% 27 h 22 h 37k
Dec 23, 2022 Winter storm 2,186 18% 35 h 5.5 h 30k
Apr 1, 2023 No storm report 1,458 12% 37 h 24 h 25k
Jan 16, 2022 Winter storm 2,149 18% 38 h 12 h 24k
Feb 25, 2015 Winter storm 3,834 32% 21 h 5.5 h 24k
Oct 29, 2020 Hurricane Zeta 2,291 19% 41 h 27 h 23k
Jun 9, 2025 No storm report 1,935 16% 16 h 16 h 23k
Dec 24, 2020 Winter storm 1,400 12% 43 h 26 h 21k

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 +24h

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 Swain from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.

  • No storm on record 67%
  • Winter storm 11%
  • Tropical storm 9.5%
  • Thunderstorms 8.0%
  • Tornadoes 3.6%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving Swain

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
Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC Investor Owned 216 172 1.35 13.4 2.0M

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 12,084 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 →