Internet Outages

I have witnessed 2 internet outages over the past 3 to 4 months and only found out because I had some assignments to work on. It took some time to get connected to the 24 hour Cox support line, then they told me there was an outage in my area that would take several hours to result. Is this normal? The most recent was on the 28th of January and I found out around midnight. I do not know how long it had already been off. I wish Cox would inform customers by phone or text when this happens. Are we compensated when these outages occur and we do not have service?