Windstorm Causes Outage for 4,213
PrintMarch 6, 2014 – A windstorm caused outages for 4,213 customers of Columbia River People’s Utility District on Wednesday night.
The largest outage affected 2,230 customers on the west side of St. Helens and in Yankton. It was caused by a tree limb on the power lines on Sykes Road. The outage began at 11:45 p.m. Wednesday night; power was restored at 1:52 a.m. on Thursday morning.
A tree limb on the lines on Hazen Road caused an outage for 1,948 Warren area customers. That outage also began at 11:45 p.m. Power was restored to a majority of affected customers by 3:35 a.m., and to the remaining customers by 4:45 a.m.
Two smaller outages affected a total of 35 customers. Those outages were also storm-related and affected customers on Liberty Hill Road in St. Helens and on Pisgah Home Road in Scappoose.
“Although we have two tree crews working year-round to trim trees that are growing too close to the power lines, strong wind gusts can still blow trees and limbs into the lines and cause outages,” said PUD Engineering & Operations Manager Steve Hursh.
