Tracking Two Decades of
U.S. Power Blackouts
When the grid goes dark, refrigerators fall silent, heat and air conditioning stop, and everyday life grinds to a halt. Explore where major outages have hit hardest, how they've grown over 20 years, and how long your food really lasts once the power's out.
Major outages, state by state
Filter by year, month, and cause to see how reported grid disturbances are distributed across the country. Hover or tap any state for details.
Outages are trending up
Reported major disturbances have climbed sharply since the mid-2000s, with a clear seasonal rhythm tied to storm and heat-wave patterns.
Outages by year
Outages by month
Blackouts by state and year
Every state's annual outage count, 2003??"2023. Read across a row for one state's history, or down a column for that year's state-by-state breakout. Click a column to sort by year, or a state name to spotlight it on the map and charts above.
How long does your food last?
Slide to see how many hours a blackout can last before common foods become unsafe or spoil. Refrigerated dairy and meat go first; hardy produce holds out far longer.
Ride out the blackout on battery power
A home battery stores energy for when the grid goes down. Pick a system size and see how long it keeps your home running ??" from full A/C comfort, to just the fridge and essentials, to keeping the internet and your devices alive. Even a small backup keeps that refrigerator cold well past the 4-hour spoilage window above.
About this data
This tracker is built from the U.S. Department of Energy's OE-417 electric disturbance event reports — the official annual summaries of major grid disturbances and outages — covering every year from 2003 through 2023. It shows how blackout frequency, seasonality, cause, and geography have shifted over two decades.
Figures are compiled from 4,150 reported disturbance events across the 21 annual OE-417 summaries. Each event is counted once nationally and attributed to every state named in its “area affected” field, so a storm spanning three states adds to all three on the map and state table. Cause categories are grouped from DOE's event-type labels into weather/natural disaster, physical attack & vandalism, equipment/system failure, cyber, fuel, and other. Counts reflect distinct reported events meeting federal reporting thresholds — not every momentary interruption — and the reporting criteria were broadened around 2011, which lifts counts from that year onward. A small number of entries naming only Puerto Rico or multi-state grid operators are counted nationally but not mapped to a state.
Food-safety guidance follows the general "4-hour refrigerator / 48-hour freezer" rule used by U.S. food-safety authorities. When in doubt, throw it out.
