10,000 from CRR to Warm Springs lose power for hours

(Update: Power restored to all, utility says)

More than 10,000 Pacific Power customers from Terrebonne and Crooked River Ranch to Madras and Warm Springs lost power Thursday morning in frigid temperatures. Utility crews were able to restore service to about 4,000 in about 90 minutes and the rest by the noon hour.

About 6,000 customers remained without power late Thursday morning, while others in Culver, Crooked River Ranch and Terrebonne had the power back on around 9:15 a.m. and the rest by 12:15 p.m., 4 1/2 hours after it began, Pacific Power spokesman Tom Gauntt said.

Gauntt said, “A transmission connection from another energy supplier that feeds into the Culver substation had a fault,” causing the outage.

He said the outage began around 7:45 a.m. and affected areas including Culver, Madras, Warm Springs and Opal Springs. Residents who contacted NewsChannel 21 said they also lost power in the Crooked River Ranch and Terrebonne areas.

Normally, you can track outage updates at Pacific Power’s live online map – but Gauntt said they also were having trouble updating the map due to internet connectivity issues, so this outage was not showing there as of 9 a.m. and was not showing updated numbers later.

A south Wasco County resident said they, too, lost power around the same time.

Some residents said their power came back around 9:30 a.m., while another told NewsChannel 21 they got a text from the utility with an estimated time of restoration by 10:30 a.m. Madras residents reported power back about 11:30 a.m.

Meanwhile, Central Electric Cooperative officials said their repair work continues, with only about 30 vacation homes in the Camp Sherman area remaining out of power,

The outages came as temperatures in the affected area had plunged to 8 degrees in Warm Springs and 3 degrees in Culver. Other area readings at 8 a.m. included -1 at Redmond Airport, zero at Prineville Airport and 10 at Bend Airport.

We’ll have updates as we get them.