Gusty Winds Cause Outages for 2,044

PUD linemen Jared Motherway (standing) and Chuck Long remove a cedar tree from the power lines in St. Helens.

March 16, 2015 – Gusty winds caused outages for 2,044 Columbia River People’s Utility District (PUD) customers from Rainier to Scappoose on the afternoon of Sunday, March 15. 2015.

The PUD responded to 16 separate outages, all caused by trees or tree limbs falling onto or through the power lines. The first outage began at 2:10 p.m. and the last one began at 5:00 p.m. The largest outage affected 1,453 customers in south St. Helens.

The PUD dispatched three line crews to make repairs, and power was restored to all customers by 10:30 p.m.