A new law now in effect requires all utilities to have a plan in place to notify customers of planned or unplanned outages. The bill was born out of the November 2023 gas outage in Charleston’s West Side. Customers complained they had no notifications from Mountaineer Gas about the outage itself or any restoration efforts. Eyewitness News said the new law requires that notification plans submitted to the PSC must include a method for advance notification, like texts, emails or calls to all affected customers for both planned and unplanned outages. This must include an estimated duration and restoration times. Now that it’s state law, utilities have 30 days to come into compliance.