YUMA, Ariz- It’s the official start of monsoon season in Arizona and that means you’ll want to make sure you’re prepared for a power outage.
Mike Erfert with the Yuma Fire Department said the best piece of advice is to stay our of the heat.
Erfert adds, “Especially during the hottest part of the day but what happens when your powers out or when your air conditioner isn’t working? Well with this being the start of monsoon season, that could bring us things like lightning, other storms, high winds. Things that could knockout power.”
Community Affairs Manager, Anna Chaulk with APS said they work all year long to prepare for monsoon season.
“We really make sure that we do a good job of being prepared for monsoon season so we can deliver electricity reliability and safely” said Chaulk.
Erfert adds they receive many calls during monsoon season and it’s important to have a plan just in case of an emergency.
He said, “At one time or another. Some point of town will lose power. That often coincides with those temperatures being 110 plus. So what kind of plans have you made and think about where would you go. Making arrangements with friends and family with another part of town that if your powers out that’s where you go.”
If an outage does happen the procedure at APS is to do outbound calls and check in on their customers.
“We really do encourage people to call before the monsoon season happens. If there is a customer who has a medical issue that requires electricity say for example, a dialysis machine or something like that. We’d want to know what that is before the monsoon season happens” Chaulk said.