Douglas County almost back to full power

Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)

2019-03-04

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Pacific Power has restored power to most of the Douglas County customers affected by last week’s massive snowstorm. On Monday morning, 364 customers remained without power. More than 31,000 customers across the county had no electricity last Monday, with more farther north. “Approximately 42,000 Pacific Power customers from Corvallis to Roseburg were left without power after winter weather dumped heavy snow on the region, which made many roads impassable and brought down trees, damaging lines,” said a Pacific Power news release, noting that 99 percent of the original affected customers have had their electricity restored. But even with that progress, thousands of people who receive their electricity from a separate entity, the Douglas Electric Cooperative, are still without power. As of Sunday night, the count for those still affected was about 4,900. And for some of the hard-hit areas, full restoration could be weeks away. It might take crews up to three weeks to re-establish power for the communities of Elkton, Scottsburg, Curtain and Upper Smith River, according to the Douglas Electric Cooperative website. Electricity restoration could be up to two weeks away for Scotts Valley, Elkhead, Hogan Road and Umpqua/Tyee, and up to one week away for the Camas Valley, Tenmile, Melrose and Lookingglass. Last weekend more than 250 company crew members and contractors worked to continue getting power back to thousands of customers still in the dark. Crews continued to work toward full restoration Monday. The storm also caused several road closures, including parts of Oregon highways 38, 138 and 42. A nearly 100-mile stretch of Interstate 5 also saw a brief closure. U.S. Highway 101 remains closed just north of Brookings due to a landslide that throttled the roadway. A contractor has been hired to repair the damage to the nearly mile-long stretch. The staggering number of outages, road closures and storm damage from the storm prompted Gov. Kate Brown to issue a state of emergency in 10 Oregon counties, including Jackson, Josephine and Douglas. The declaration allowed the state Office of Emergency Management to coordinate efforts by the Oregon Department of Transportation, Oregon State Police and Oregon National Guard to aid in the recovery effort.