Windstorm Causes Outages for 1,006
PrintOctober 28, 2014 – A storm brought strong winds that dropped trees and limbs onto power lines throughout Columbia River PUD’s service area last weekend, causing 26 separate outages that affected a total of 1,006 PUD customers.
The windstorm was one of the strongest storms in several years, with sustained winds topping 32 MPH and peak gusts of 42 MPH recorded at the Scappoose Industrial Airpark Weather Station.
The PUD had three line crews making repairs during the windstorm. Twenty of the outages occurred between 1PM and 6PM on Saturday afternoon, and crews finished repairs on the last of those outages at 3AM on Sunday. Two more outages occurred on Sunday and PUD crews repaired both of them within two hours.
“Our linemen did an outstanding job responding to the high number of trouble spots. They worked quickly, safely, and efficiently to get the lights back on for customers. I appreciate their professionalism and dedication to serving our customers,” said Engineering & Operations Manager Steve Hursh.
The first outage call came in at 12:30 AM on Saturday morning, when a tree fell through the line on East Meissner Road in Deer Island. PUD crews removed the tree, repaired the line, and restored power to the 12 affected customers by 3:10 AM.
The largest outage began at 6:04 AM on Saturday, when a tree fell onto a power pole on Dutch Canyon Road, affecting 210 customers in the area. PUD crews removed the tree and restored power at 10AM.
The longest outage affected 28 customers on Wonderly Road and began at 2:09 PM when a tree fell across the power lines.
Hursh reminds customers to stay at least 50 feet away from downed lines and from trees or limbs that have fallen through our power lines. Always assume downed lines are live and dangerous, and call the PUD at (503) 397-1844 to report them.
