DE CO-OP BLIZZARD UPDATE

February 23, 2026

5:30 a.m. Blizzard Update: We’re facing an absolute mess this morning across Kent and Sussex Counties. Heavy snow and high winds will continue for a few more hours. With 50,000 homes in the dark, our crews have their work cut out for them. We estimate the damage to our system to be worse than what we experienced during the 2010 blizzards. Countless trees, powerlines and utility poles are down across our service territory. Many of the back roads are not accessible to our trucks yet and conditions are still dangerous.

Shortly, our employees will begin assessing the damage and start what we expect to be a slow and difficult process to restore power. We’ll be calling on our friends from neighboring Mid-Atlantic electric cooperatives to help us get the lights back – a process we think will take days. Until the storm winds down, we cannot offer specific estimated restoration times. We know our members are used to power being restored quickly and hope you’ll be patient with us as our crews and members face a daunting couple of days. Members should be prepared for extended outages. We’ll provide updates once we have a better understanding of the extent of the damage later this morning.

Please note, due to the extent of outages, we cannot answer every question, comment or message.

If you lose power during the storm, please report your outage by calling 855-332-9090 or by visiting https://outagetrouble.delaware.coop.

Here’s additional information on how to report an outage: https://www.delaware.coop/outage-center/report-outage

Find power outage safety tips here: https://www.ready.gov/power-outages

Find our outage map here: https://outagemap.delaware.coop

12:15 a.m. BLIZZARD UPDATE: Our crews have been braving extremely dangerous conditions to restore power this evening, and we’ve made the difficult decision to halt most restoration work until the storm winds down later this morning. We rarely make a decision like this, but we want our team to return home safely to their families after the storm. Crews are getting stuck, trees are falling around them, and roads are treacherous. With 32,000 homes without power, we know this is unwelcome news for members wondering when their lights will come back on. Ultimately, the safety of our crews is our top priority, and we hope our members understand and were prepared for prolonged outages.

Unfortunately, members who are currently without power — or who lose power overnight — will likely remain without service until later today and possibly longer. Once the worst of the storm has passed, our team will be able to better assess the damage and begin the long restoration process. We expect to have a clearer estimate of restoration times as crews get back to work.

This is the biggest winter storm we’ve seen since 2010, and restoration efforts will take time. Please keep our crews in your prayers and know that we will do everything we can to restore power as soon as this dangerous blizzard has ended.

Sunday Night Storm Update (9:00 p.m.): The blizzard has arrived and heavy snow is causing trees and branches to fall across power lines. We have about 9,000 members without power across our service territory. This will not be a typical storm and blizzard conditions mean our crews are facing extremely dangerous travel conditions as they respond to outages. At some point, we may pull our crews off the roads until conditions improve for their safety – our top priority. If you lose power tonight, please be prepared to be without power all night and possibly into tomorrow. Some outages could last several days. While we may not be able to provide specific estimated restoration times for every outage, we will continue to share updates and important information on our website storm page: https://www.delaware.coop/blizzard-impacting-decs-service....

We understand that being without power in these severe conditions is difficult and concerning. Please know that all available resources are deployed and we are focused on restoring service as quickly as possible!