How to Navigate the Eye of the Storm: Web Strategies for Utility Crisis Communications

February 19, 2024

Severe weather season is upon us!

According to the National Weather Service, the months of March through May mark spring’s severe weather season. For electric co-ops and other utility organizations, this time is a call to action– demanding that their communications infrastructure be as fortified and responsive as the services they provide. At Powerful, our mission is to arm utility communicators with web design strategies that stand firm against the gales and downpours; ensuring clear, calm, and effective messaging through the storm.

Setting Sail with Alerts

In moments of urgency, such as an unexpected power outage, the first action for many is to check their utility’s website for immediate updates. It’s in these critical moments that having information readily available can make all the difference. That’s where Powerful’s Alerts web app comes into play, ensuring that your employees can swiftly communicate outage updates to keep customers or members informed and prepared.

Grays Harbor PUD utilizes Powerful’s Alerts app to quickly communicate outages in the area, ensuring residents are promptly informed and prepared for any disruptions.

The app allows employees to easily publish vibrant, attention-grabbing alerts at the top of their websites. The alert banner provides a comprehensive snapshot of the situation at hand: including a headline, brief text description, and an optional button that leads to more detailed content.

The simplicity and effectiveness of the Alerts web app underscore Powerful’s commitment to clear, timely communication during emergencies. By enabling easy updates and ensuring high visibility for alerts, the web app plays a pivotal role in maintaining a well-informed community, especially during the severe weather season. With the help of Powerful’s Alerts web app, utilities can navigate the challenges of severe weather season with confidence.

Charting the Outage Center: A Visual Voyage

Walls of text are the rough seas for website visitors; they’re hard to navigate and can drown the message you’re trying to convey. Through visualization, Powerful turns these tumultuous waters into a smooth sailing experience. By breaking down barriers of text into engaging icons and visuals, Powerful creates an intuitive layout for visitors to follow.

Southside Electric Cooperative’s Visualized Outage Center empowers members with engaging design. Members can swiftly navigate outage updates, ensuring timely information and effective response during severe weather events.

A visualized Outage page allows visitors to quickly skim information. Context clues from icons and imagery ensure that your message reaches your community effectively and efficiently. Through thoughtful website design, this method of visual storytelling enhances accessibility while enriching the overall visitor experience.

Steering with Intuitive Navigation: The Compass of Your Website

In the vast content of your website, intuitive navigation is the compass that guides your visitors to safe shores.

Outage Information

Understanding the urgency of outage updates, Powerful integrates this information through a prominent top bar link. This ensures that, regardless of where your visitors find themselves within the website, they’re never more than a click away from finding the latest updates. This design choice eliminates the need for visitors to search through multiple pages or menus, making the process of staying informed during outages as straightforward as possible.

Call to Action Buttons

Call to Action buttons (CTAs) help point your visitors in the right direction. CTAs are crafted for visibility, clarity, and ease of use. Whether it’s to check the current status of an outage or to learn more about preventive measures, these buttons make accessing information effortless. It’s all about removing barriers; making it easier for visitors to get the help they need, when they need it.

Decatur County REMC’s website offers direct access to outage information through a convenient top bar link and prominent call to action button.

Accessible Contact Information

Ever experienced the frustration of searching for contact information on a website, only to find it buried deep within layers of pages? It’s a common annoyance that can turn a simple task into a time-consuming hunt. At Powerful, we’ve tackled this issue with quick and easy access to contact details. By placing essential contact information in the footer of every website, we eliminate the need for visitors to dig through menus or scroll through pages of content. It’s a simple yet effective solution that ensures support is always within reach.

With Wood County Electric Cooperative’s footer, help is just a click away. Powerful’s intuitive design enables seamless access to WCEC’s Outage Hotline, ensuring immediate support during emergencies.

Through the Eye of the Storm

As the severe weather season unfolds from March through May, the role of utility communicators becomes more critical. With Powerful’s web design strategies, your website can transform into a steadfast lighthouse, guiding your community through the fiercest storms of severe weather season.

Powerful’s suite of tools—from alert banners to visualized outage centers and intuitive navigation—are designed not just for clarity and efficiency, but for resilience. They ensure that in the toughest of storms, your message remains clear, your community stays informed, and your utility stands as a light in the eye of the storm.

As we brace for the unpredictable months ahead, let’s lean into the challenge with preparation and the right tools at our disposal. With Powerful by your side, you’re not just weathering the storm; you’re navigating your community through it, offering a beacon of hope and information when it’s needed most. Together, let’s face the severe weather season head-on, ensuring safety, clarity, and connection for all.