Big blackout hits 7,000 in Sunriver-La Pine area

About 7,000 Midstate Electric Cooperative customers from Sunriver south to La Pine lost power for one to nearly three hours Sunday evening after a tree fell on a transmission line feeding four substation, officials said.

Half had power back in about 75 minutes, but it took two more hours to get the rest online, after the fallen tree was found and removed.

The feeder line serving the four substations went down around 5 p.m., and repair crews had two substations back online by 6:15 p.m., said utility spokeswoman Teresa Lackey.

Areas still affected by the outage after that were from the Thousand Trails area north to Sunriver, Lackey said.

A short time later, Lackey said crews had found where a tree had fallen on a line, causing the outage, and were working to remove it, re-energize the line and complete repairs.

A utility spokesman at the Midstate phone number (541-536-2136) said just before 7 p.m. they expected to have power fully restored by about 8 p.m., and thanked customers for their patience. Lackey said all had power back by 8:05 p.m., after the Sunriver and Benham Falls substations were restored.

Areas residents initially reported as affected included Oregon Water Wonderland, Thousand Trails, Ponderosa Pines, River Meadows, Newberry Estates, Deschutes River Recreation Homesites, Spring River, Three Rivers, portions of Sunriver (including the Village Mall) and (in terms of roads) at homes along Burgess, Day, Cagle, Stellar and La Pine State Rec roads, as well as Solar and Park drives.