Severe weather, such as winter storms and flooding, can greatly threaten the electric grid in the United States. This often leads to long power outages that disrupt communication and vital services. During these events, emergency responders typically depend on utility companies to report outages, but this information is often lacking in rural areas, making it difficult to restore power quickly.

To address this issue, we use images of nighttime lights to help identify power outages in rural counties and understand how these outages affect people and local infrastructures. Our approach tackles challenges found in rural areas, where the nighttime lights can be inconsistent and dim. We correct the data and combine it with information about land use and buildings to improve our ability to detect outages.

We identified power outages in Powder River, Montana, United States during a winter storm and assessed the impact on the local community and essential infrastructure. The results from this work can help prioritize power restoration efforts, improve infrastructure, and better allocate emergency resources. Providing outage data for previously unavailable rural areas can help reduce national security risks connected to power outages.