Customers rushed to Grayson Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation's office Monday morning after a system malfunction knocked out power left many pre-paid customers unable to pay bills or check account balances during extreme he at.The outage affected the cooperative's payment systems, phone lines, and website, leaving prepaid customers without access to critical services. Many took to GRECC's Facebook page expressing frustration about being unable to reach the company or manage their accounts."The main issue here is that customers are left in the dark twice," said Brandon LaVoie, a prepaid customer.The situation proved particularly concerning for vulnerable residents. William Rucker Jr., who relies on breathing and oxygen machines, said he panicked when he couldn't contact the company."I got to have electricity because I'm on a breathing machine and stuff, oxygen machine," Rucker said.Under GRECC's prepaid plan, LaVoie says customers must monitor daily usage and make frequent payments. He explained that customers receive daily balance notifications at 9 a.m. and face disconnection at 10 a.m. if accounts aren't brought to a positive balance."If you come here at exactly 10 a.m. you will see people sprinting to this door to make sure that their power doesn't get shut off," LaVoie said.Rucker said his account showed an impossible jump from 41 kilowatts to 599 kilowatts due to what he was told was a system malfunction.LEX 18 News attempted to contact GRECC three times on Monday by phone, but each call was disconnected. After waiting at the office to speak with GRECC's CEO, an employee asked us to submit questions via email.In a statement, Grayson Rural Electric Cooperative apologized for the system malfunction that left some customers without power for 90 minutes during extreme heat. The cooperative said the unplanned outage occurred while resolving a technical issue with its computer system, which mistakenly disconnected prepaid accounts with outstanding balances.As a precautionary measure, GRECC said it will suspend prepay disconnections until July 27, giving the utility time to stabilize the system.LaVoie said he hopes for improvements moving forward."I don't want this to be any kind of pointing fingers. This is just, it's concerning in this heat and with a lot of what I've seen my neighbors saying," he said. "I know that it consumes a lot of our life having to make sure that our account is in the positive." ...read more read less