PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Thousands within the Portland Metro and Salem areas are still living without electricity well into Thursday night after heavy snowfall and ice covered the region Wednesday afternoon, causing fallen trees and impacted power lines.
The number of outages continued to grow throughout Thursday morning,
As of 9:23 p.m., Portland General Electric has minimized the amount of those without power to 58 active outages and 988 customers affected, a stark decline from the 71 total active outages and more than 7,400 customers affected around 3 p.m.
Meanwhile, more than 1,268 Pacific Power customers remain without electricity as of 9:15 p.m. Although the majority of the outages are concentrated in Lincoln City, the utility company said it has managed to restore power to more than 8,500 households that were dealing with no electricity earlier in the morning. It’s unclear what exactly left so many outages.
“Right now, our major area of concentrated effort is the Lincoln City area,” said Allen Berreth, vice president of operations at Pacific Power Thursday morning. “Initially system reports were indicating the outages in Lincoln City were larger than they actually were. But within an hour that issue was resolved.”
In Washington state, Clark Public Utilities crews have kept busy restoring power across Clark County. As of 9:30 p.m., about 62 customers are in the dark which is down from the 80 the company was reported around 10 a.m. So far, the company has restored power for 2,512 customers.
Stick with KOIN 6 for continuing coverage.