Power outages and generators needed (Thayne: power lines, homes, neighborhood)

[gizmopacurn]

My husband and I will be moving to Thayne next year and we were wondering how often the power goes out in the Star Valley area and will a generator be needed? Here on the Oregon coast we have power outages but they do not last too long before it is back on again. Thanks for any feedback.

[Crazy4Chickens]

We've lived in Star Valley for four years now, we're going into our fifth winter here and we haven't had the power go off and stay off for more than a few hours and that's only been a couple of times. We've had way less power outages here than we ever did in California. It hasn't been an issue for us at all, and we have three fish tanks, so the power going off for an extended time would ultimately kill the fish.

In our experience a generator is unnecessary.

[gizmopacurn]

Thank you for your quick response. That is good to know. Making a list of things we might need to buy when we move there.

[Crazy4Chickens]

If I can offer you any other help please DM me and I will answer any other questions you may have about the area.

[jody_wy]

many years of milking cows in Star Valley think there was one night we didn't milk cows.

[Wytempest]

Agree with the others. 27+ yrs in Wy, multiple homes in multiple counties. Can only remember one time power was out for maybe 8 hrs.

[ChrisMT]

I am very surprised the high winds do not knock out the power lines/transformers in Wyoming during storms.

Happens in Northern Nevada during wind storms, I actually am obsessed with having a woodstove in my homes now because of this....

[jdhpa]

I grew up in Florida, and the power lines (at least in my area, I don't know about other areas) were all buried. It surprises me that they aren't buried everywhere nature is likely to knock them down. The technology is many decades old.

[ChrisMT]

Yes, the power lines in my neighborhood are underground, but it would be very difficult to have all underground lines in the steep terrain of the Sierra Mountains and across the desert mountain ranges here...

I would be surprised if a state as sparsely populated as Wyoming buried most of their lines...not sure?

[Crazy4Chickens]

I don't know about the rest of Wyoming, but in the Star Valley area most of our lines are buried. We also don't get as much wind as a lot of other portions of Wyoming does. We're in a valley surrounded by mountains so we're somewhat protected from the huge winds. Not to say it doesn't get windy here, but not the crazy winds of the other areas.

I'm only going off of four years of living here and in that time we've lost power only a couple times, not even in the winter, for a few hours max. Could be we've just been lucky, but my neighbor who has lived here a lot longer than I have has never said that she's had any long term issues with the power going out. They are really good here about fixing the lines asap if they go down for any reason.