Power outage history
Laurens County South Carolina
22hours
without power for the average customer in a typical year, 2018–2025
7th most of 46 in South Carolina 3.4× the national median
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 Laurens's customers who were without power at that day's worst moment.
Year by year
Hours in the dark, per customer
2024 was the worst well-recorded year, at 6.0 days for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.
Laurens, hours without power per customer
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 27, 2024 | Hurricane Helene | 27,984 | 81% | 12.6 d | 10.4 d | 4.9M |
| Sep 11, 2017 | Windstorm | 6,314 | 18% | 46 h | 28 h | 130k |
| Dec 31, 2019 | No storm report | 1,292 | 4% | 7.0 d | – | 108k |
| Jan 16, 2022 | Winter storm | 5,477 | 16% | 40 h | 28 h | 97k |
| Jun 7, 2025 | Thunderstorms | 8,421 | 24% | 26 h | 19 h | 63k |
| Feb 17, 2015 | Ice storm | 3,084 | 9% | 40 h | 14 h | 53k |
| Jun 1, 2018 | Thunderstorms | 4,541 | 13% | 18 h | 13 h | 30k |
| Oct 8, 2019 | No storm report | 1,314 | 4% | 21 h | – | 28k |
| Jun 22, 2019 | Thunderstorms | 4,681 | 14% | 17 h | 15 h | 28k |
| Dec 23, 2022 | No storm report | 4,675 | 14% | 10 h | 6.5 h | 21k |
| Apr 17, 2020 | No storm report | 1,000 | 3% | 20 h | – | 19k |
| Jul 7, 2016 | Thunderstorms | 2,016 | 6% | 19 h | 7.5 h | 18k |
| Dec 24, 2020 | No storm report | 3,030 | 9% | 6.2 h | 5.2 h | 14k |
| Mar 1, 2017 | Thunderstorms | 2,924 | 8% | 7.8 h | 4.5 h | 13k |
| Jul 3, 2023 | No storm report | 1,896 | 6% | 7.2 h | 6.2 h | 11k |
| Apr 10, 2023 | No storm report | 1,653 | 5% | 9.5 h | – | 11k |
| Nov 11, 2022 | Hurricane Nicole | 2,291 | 7% | 9.8 h | 1.0 h | 11k |
| Dec 30, 2019 | No storm report | 646 | 2% | 18 h | – | 10k |
| Dec 24, 2022 | No storm report | 1,467 | 4% | 11 h | – | 9.5k |
| Mar 25, 2015 | No storm report | 2,409 | 7% | 5.8 h | 5.8 h | 9.3k |
| Apr 1, 2023 | No storm report | 2,147 | 6% | 7.8 h | 5.8 h | 8.9k |
| Mar 31, 2025 | Thunderstorms | 2,203 | 6% | 4.8 h | 3.5 h | 8.6k |
| Jun 25, 2025 | Thunderstorms | 4,263 | 12% | 4.2 h | 1.5 h | 8.4k |
| Oct 15, 2018 | No storm report | 2,058 | 6% | 4.0 h | 12 h | 8.2k |
| Jun 25, 2018 | Thunderstorms | 2,807 | 8% | 3.8 h | 2.2 h | 8.1k |
| Jan 12, 2023 | Tornadoes | 2,174 | 6% | 5.5 h | 3.8 h | 8.0k |
| Jun 14, 2025 | No storm report | 1,914 | 6% | 4.5 h | 2.0 h | 7.9k |
| Nov 8, 2025 | Thunderstorms | 2,108 | 6% | 3.8 h | 3.8 h | 7.8k |
| Aug 10, 2021 | Thunderstorms | 1,884 | 5% | 7.0 h | 11 h | 7.1k |
| Apr 8, 2019 | No storm report | 1,811 | 5% | 4.2 h | 3.2 h | 6.5k |
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.
When it happens
The outage clock
Customer-hours out by month (rings, January innermost) and local hour, 2018–2025.
What was happening
Weather behind the outages
Each outage is matched to NOAA storm reports for Laurens from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.
- Tropical storm 85%
- No storm on record 9.9%
- Thunderstorms 3.5%
- Winter storm 1.7%
Who keeps the lights on
Utilities serving Laurens
As each utility reports to the Energy Information Administration for its whole South 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 | 220 | 141 | 1.26 | 13.5 | 582k |
| Laurens Electric Coop, Inc | Cooperative | 211 | 154 | 1.79 | 15.6 | 60k |
| City of Laurens | SC | 40 | 5 | 0.36 | 13.5 | 47k |
| Clinton Combined Utility Sys | SC | 9 | – | 0.08 | 17.1 | 35k |
| Newberry Electric Coop, Inc | Cooperative | 512 | 230 | 3.23 | 17.1 | 13k |
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
- Abbeville 26 h
- Greenville 25 h
- Spartanburg 25 h
- Laurens (this county) 22 h
- Anderson 21 h
- Greenwood 18 h
- Newberry 17 h
- Union 4.1 h
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 34,457 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 →