With near-catastrophic damage to sections of Emerald People’s Utility District (EPUD) electric system, and most of that damage invisible to customers, EPUD wants to shed light on the behind-the-scenes work of our crews, said General Manager Scott Coe.
EPUD’s linework crews have focused on repairs to transmission service, substations, and distribution lines in the past few days. Now that this work is almost complete, the utility has turned a corner.
“With all substations back up and distribution lines repaired, we’ve nearly finished restoring the backbone of our system,” he said.
“The hard work intensifies as we work to restore as many individual tap lines as possible. This can be a slow process, and we appreciate our customers’ patience as we work to get everyone back on,” Coe said.
To ensure power is restored to customers as safely and quickly as possible, EPUD has brought in 42 line workers from other utilities to work with EPUD’s 20 line workers.
“Even with all that help, we are working to get additional help from outside crews so we can restore power even faster. Lineworkers from throughout our state are in high demand due to the extensive damage suffered by multiple utilities,” Coe said.
Crews are working in Creswell, Coburg, Dexter, Junction City, Lorane, Marcola, Parsons Creek Area, Pleasant Hill, and Seavey Loop. At this point, 5040 customers are without power.
EPUD follows a well-established process to restore power to the greatest number of customers in the least amount of time. View the Steps to Restoring Power (PDF). The PDF document includes a status update for each step.