Power outage hits Deschutes County 911; calls rerouted for nearly an hour

(Update: Comments from 911 director on cause)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Deschutes County 911 officials are investigating the cause of a power outage Thursday evening that knocked out phones and radio communications for nearly an hour, prompting a rerouting of calls -- out of the area for a time, then to a backup facility.

The power outage began shortly after 6 p.m., officials said.

During the outage, 911 emergency calls were initially routed to Central Lane 911 in Eugene. They were then re-routed to the Deschutes 911 back-up center, which officials said was fully operational.

Power was restored at Deschutes 911 just before 7 p.m.

"The dispatch center is now fully operational," a later announcement stated, adding that the cause of the outage was under investigation. 

Deschutes County 911 Director Sara Crosswhite told NewsChannel 21, "To my knowledge, we have never had a power failure to this level, and I have been with the district a little over 23 years.

"We do have a back-up generator," she said. "This was a mechanical failure of a piece of equipment inside our building that caused the failure."

Crosswhite added, "I am hopeful we will have more concrete answers to share (Friday) as to what took place. I do want to convey that our staff were incredible and did an amazing job during a very difficult situation."

Crosswhite said Friday it was determined to be a problem with a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) controller, which monitors and routes power from several sources to dispatch equipment. If the main power source fails, the controller is supposed to receiving power from the facility's backup generator.

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