Sam Houston Electric Cooperative unveiling a new service for consumer-members: reporting outages by text message.
“We are excited to unveil this new service to our members,” said Rachel Frey, communications specialist. “Members will be able to report an outage and even receive an estimated time of restoration, all sent directly to their cellphone.”
To take advantage, members must first sign in to their mySamHouston account at samhouston.net and register their mobile device in the Notifications tab under Manage Contacts.
“Members can also sign up by opening their mySamHouston app and clicking More at the bottom right of their screen,” Frey said. “Then click Settings and Contact Methods to add a phone number. Members must enroll in this service so the Cooperative is authorized to send these text messages.”
When the member experiences a power outage at their home, they can text “out” to (844) 961-2539. This will create an outage report at their location. Members can also text “status” to the same code to receive an estimated time of restoration.
“If a phone number is registered to multiple locations, the member will be advised to log in to the app or mySamHouston to report the outage,” Frey said.
Consumer-members can also set up additional notifications in the mySamHouston online portal or app under Manage Notifications. They can register for information about power outages, bill availability and even custom notifications about their energy use.
“We want to make it easy for members to work with Sam Houston EC,” Frey said. “We understand outages are inconvenient, but we are working to make the reporting process easy and provide members with detailed information about their outage.”
