More than 1,600 Duke Energy customers across Anderson County lost power Saturday, September 5, part of a stretch of outages the utility linked to weather moving through the Upstate. Duke Energy reported 1,602 affected accounts.
The outage was reported by FOX Carolina News, which cited Duke Energy in attributing the disruption to weather affecting the Carolinas. The station's report did not specify which neighborhoods or roads were hardest hit, only that Anderson County customers were without service Saturday.
A Pattern of Upstate Outages
Saturday's blackout is the latest in a run of power disruptions across Upstate South Carolina this summer. Just a week earlier, a wave of severe thunderstorms knocked out electricity to more than 7,000 Duke Energy customers across the Carolinas, including parts of the Upstate, as Hoodline reported at the time. And in neighboring Greenville County, a mystery blackout in early August cut power to nearly 2,900 Duke Energy customers, taking overnight repairs before service was fully restored.
South Carolina led the nation in customer outage hours in 2024, with an average of 52.3 hours per customer, according to federal energy statistics compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Major weather events accounted for roughly 96% of the state's total outage duration that year, driven largely by severe storms including Hurricane Helene.
Driving Rules When Signals Go Dark
Outages like Friday's can also knock out traffic signals, and South Carolina law is specific about what drivers should do when that happens. State law requires motorists approaching a dark or unpowered traffic signal to treat the intersection as a four-way stop, with violations carrying fines up to $100 and four driver license points. South Carolina Highway Patrol enforces those four-way stop rules during signal blackouts.
Anderson County's dark-roadway concerns extend beyond intersections. Unlit stretches of Interstate 85 in the county experienced 11 fatal nighttime traffic crashes between 2021 and 2026, with overhead lights along some sections out since at least 2017.
Grid Growth Meets Rising Demand
The outage lands in a county where the local grid faces new pressure.
Duke Energy Carolinas serves nearly 680,000 customers in an Upstate and I-77 rate-request area and requested a 7.7% rate increase in 2025 to fund grid strengthening and storm resilience upgrades, per PR Newswire. Regulators are also backing longer-term fixes: the Public Service Commission of South Carolina approved Duke Energy's $3.2 billion proposal in March to build a 1,365-megawatt natural gas plant in Anderson County along S.C. Highway 81 South, with construction slated to begin in 2027 and operation targeted for 2031, according to the Upstate Business Journal. It would be Duke Energy's first new generation plant built in South Carolina in a decade.
How to Report and Track Outages
Duke Energy advises South Carolina customers affected by blackouts to report outages by texting OUT to 57801, calling 800-769-3766, or checking live restoration progress on the company's mobile app. The state also faces coordination challenges during persistent grid disruptions.
