Hometown Grid will provide more efficiency when restoring power, CTO says
Henderson Municipal Power & Light has launched a new way for customers to report outages.
HMP&L has joined an outage information system called Hometown Grid that allows customers to report outages by texting or calling 888-579-2726.
Brian Hardesty, HMP&L’s chief technology officer, said the new system is “definitely a huge step forward for our customers” because it allows them to report an outage without being put on hold or getting a busy signal when calling.
The information coming to HMP&L also allows crews to get to outage areas more quickly, increasing the efficiency of work that needs to be done, Hardesty said.
According to an HMP&L release, the system automatically confirms a report made by a customer and asks a few quick follow-up questions to help utility crews pinpoint the issue.
Hardesty said after a customer makes a report, HMP&L will be able to communicate back to them either with a one-on-one text message or with messaging that can go to hundreds of customers in an affected area.
Additionally, outages are shown on a public map in real time, so residents can see where issues are occurring and follow the progress as updates come in, said the release.
The outage map can be seen at www.hometowngrid.com/hmpl.
Customers of other electric companies who live within city limits will still need to contact their provider to report outages, Hardesty said.
For more information, call (270) 826-2726 or visit hmpl.com.
