SHREVEPORT, La., June 25, 2007 – Southwestern Electric Power Company today added a new feature to its Web site that gives customers in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas information about power outages when they occur.

“SWEPCO’s Web site provides customers with many useful tools – energy savings information, customer service tools, and now continuously updated information about power outages,” said Mike Young, SWEPCO Corporate Communications manager. “We know customers want information about outages and this tool does just that.”

The feature is now on http://www.SWEPCO.com under the “Storms & Outages” link on the home page or the News & Issues page.

“Now visitors to the SWEPCO Web site can see how many customers are without power in a particular county, parish or state. Clicking on a county or parish that has an outage in progress launches a table with a county or parish total. The table shows total customer outages for all counties or parishes and all three states the company serves, comparing the number of outages to the total number of customers. 

“The new tool gives customers, reporters, emergency services personnel and others a way to gauge the magnitude of an outage,” Young said.

SWEPCO’s online “Storms and Outages” center also provides information about the company’s restoration process, tips on what to do if the power goes off and allows customers to report outages on-line.

SWEPCO is headquartered in Shreveport, and its 1,540 employees serve more than 464,000 customers in western Arkansas, northwestern Louisiana, and eastern and North Texas.

SWEPCO is an operating company unit of American Electric Power (AEP), one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, delivering electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states.  AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S.  AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined.  AEP’s transmission system directly or indirectly serves about 10 percent of the electricity demand in the Eastern Interconnection, the transmission system that covers 38 eastern states and central U.S. states (SWEPCO area is in this interconnection). AEP’s utility units operate as AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana and east and north Texas).  AEP’s headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio.
News releases and other information about SWEPCO can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.SWEPCO.com