Although a fresh blanket of snow fell across Emerald People’s Utility District's (EPUD's) service territory overnight, the latest weather does not appear to have substantially worsened the outage situation for the utility’s customers.
“We’re not reporting a large number of new outages despite the overnight snowfall,” said Patty Jo Angelini, public relations coordinator. “Given the weather, it could have been much worse.”
Crews from EPUD and outside utilities have rested overnight and are headed back out this morning to continue power restoration efforts. In addition to major damage on its local system, the utility continues to wait for a main transmission line from the Bonneville Power Administration to be repaired.
EPUD has reached out for even more outside help and hopes to receive up to 14 additional line workers today from other utilities. This would put the total number of line workers in the field at close to 35.
“This is the largest mobilization effort we’ve ever undertaken to deal with a storm,” said Angelini. “We want customers to know we’re using every resource available.”
Emerald PUD is a not‐for‐profit electric utility formed in 1978 by a small group of local citizens who wanted better, customer‐oriented service at the lowest possible rates. Today EPUD serves more than 20,000 meters in Lane County, Oregon.
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