Anything that comes into contact with any part of the distribution system that delivers electricity to your meter can reduce the quality of power you receive. Tree limbs, small animals and miscellaneous foreign objects are the most common causes of those irritating blinking lights and reset clocks.

Southwest Rural Electric Co-op works constantly to control as many of these factors as is physically possible. Our linemen conduct routine overhead line inspections to detect wind and weather damage.

Trees native to Oklahoma commonly produce as much as 72" (six feet!) of re-growth annually, making them one of our leading causes of reduced power quality and outage. An aggressive, territory-wide Right-of-Way Maintenance and Tree Trimming Program was instituted in 1996 to address this problem. With the first phase of this program completed across a majority of our system, we have already seen a significant decrease in foliage related problems.

Small animals such as squirrels and even birds can ground out areas of the system causing brief interruptions of power. Our crews are currently installing Pest Shields in an effort to reduce this problem.