A weekend wind storm uprooted trees, downed power lines and shut off power for many Eastern Oregon residents.
Saturday’s wind storm saw peak gusts hit 76 mph at Arlington, 75 at Umatilla, 73 at Irrigon and 69 at the Hermiston Airport, according to the National Weather Service.
Heavy winds on Saturday knocked down massive trees throughout Umatilla and Morrow counties. Crews worked throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday to restore power to customers of Umatilla Electric Cooperative (UEC) and Hermiston Energy Services (HES). Crews were scrambling to respond to more than a hundred of outage locations.
At one point, about half of UEC customers were without power, and hundreds of HES customers lost power, as well. A transmission line that feeds the Irrigon area had six damaged poles. Crews worked to re-route power to that area with interim power restored around 12:30 p.m. on Sunday.
A line and tree removal crew were sent out to Boardman where two major tree blockages occurred along Paul Smith Road.
UEC also had crews working in east Hermiston, the Columbia-Baxter-Edwards area east of Hermiston, as well as South Shore Drive and up the hill at Umatilla. Crews also were out in the Echo Meadows area where five poles were knocked down.
A mutual aid crew from Columbia Basin Electric Cooperative in Heppner helped to restore power, as well.
The winds uprooted trees throughout the area and blocked roads in parts around the area. Click here for photos.
Thank you all for all the work and extra effort it took to restore all of our lives to normal
It is impossible to express the thanks you are due
We knew that UEC was doing its best to restore power to the community affected by those strong winds. We had to wait over 24 hours for the electrical power to be restored to our area, but we knew that the company was working on it. Thank you for al the work you have done. You can not imagine how wonderful it was to run to the shower and take a good and long one!. Again thank you UEC.
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