Nearly 6,900 customers of Central Lincoln People’s Utility District in Lincoln and Lane counties were without power for almost two hours Sunday afternoon when a tree fell and knocked out a transmission line five miles east of Waldport.
The outage affected 6,892 homes and businesses, or 31 percent of Central Lincoln’s customers in Lincoln County.
Once the utility found the outage it determined the fastest way to restore service was to re-route power from Philomath-based Consumers Power Inc. Permanent repairs will be made Monday, said Chris Chandler, spokeswoman for Central Lincoln.
The outage started at 12:45 p.m. Sunday and power was restored at 2:30 p.m., according to Central Lincoln. The outage stretched from Seal Rock in the north, south through Waldport, east five miles along Highway 34, all of Yachats and south as far as Carl Washburne State Park in Lane County.
“Our system links with Consumers Power and others so that we can get power from them in an event such as today’s, and vice versa when the need arises,” Chandler said.
Central Lincoln has 40,100 customers along the Oregon coast stretching from Lincoln County in the north to Coos County in the south. Consumers Power has 22,000 customers in rural areas of Lincoln, Benton, Linn, Polk and Marion counties