A powerful storm system is sweeping across parts of the country this Thanksgiving, bringing high winds, cold rain, and the kind of unpredictable outages that can turn a holiday upside down. While families gather around warm kitchens and overflowing tables, thousands of utility workers will be gearing up for a very different kind of day — one spent on call, on the road, or in control rooms watching the grid minute by minute.
For lineworkers, dispatchers, substation technicians, and gas crews, severe weather doesn’t pause for Thanksgiving. It accelerates. And so, every Thanksgiving, a slice of the utility workforce suits up for another shift.
Here’s a look at the utility crews working out of sight this holiday, making sure you aren’t out of service.
Dispatchers
When someone reports an outage or a hazard, it’s dispatchers who answer first.
They coordinate field crews, route emergency calls, track incoming storms, and decide which repairs need to happen immediately and which can wait. Their decisions shape how fast power comes back on — and how safely crews can do their jobs.
Control Room Operators
Inside windowless rooms that look more like NASA than a utility office, control room operators monitor the grid in real time.
They adjust power flows, balance sudden spikes in demand, and keep electricity moving across the system without overloads. During storm surges, they’re watching every minute, ready to redirect power if a line trips or a substation senses stress.
Substation Technicians
Substations are the grid’s nerve centers — the places where high-voltage electricity is stepped down and redirected across cities and neighborhoods. If something goes wrong here, entire communities can go dark.
Substation technicians inspect, maintain, and repair this equipment, especially when severe weather threatens to push transformers and breakers beyond their limits.
Lineworkers
Lineworkers are the crews who climb poles, repair downed wires, and restore power when storms hit.
Thanksgiving or not, if high winds snap a line or a tree takes down a circuit, they’re the ones driving toward the damage while everyone else moves indoors. They work in the worst conditions precisely so outages don’t stretch from minutes into hours — or even days.
Tree and Vegetation Teams
In many regions, falling branches are one of the biggest causes of storm outages. Vegetation crews work ahead of storms to clear risky limbs and, when winds pick up, respond quickly to remove trees blocking repair routes or damaging power lines.
Their work often determines how fast lineworkers can reach a downed circuit.
System Planners and Weather Analysts
Long before storms arrive, planners and analysts model the weather, predict demand, and prepare crews across the service area.
Their behind-the-scenes work ensures utilities aren’t caught off guard — and that hundreds of employees and resources are positioned exactly where they’ll be needed most on Thanksgiving Day.
In a week defined by gathering and gratitude, these crews are a reminder of the unseen labor that keeps communities running, even in the worst weather.
