Second outage in a week tied to ‘enhanced safety settings’ hits nearly 2,000 Pacific Power customers in Bend
Barney Lerten
(Update: More details on outage cause)
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — The second power outage in a week caused by “enhanced safety settings” hit nearly 2,000 Pacific Power customers on the north end of Bend for more than an hour Wednesday afternoon.
The utility’s outage map said crews were monitoring conditions after the outage, which occurred around 12:35 p.m. and affected 1,976 customers. Pacific Power estimated it could take until 4 p.m. to restore power, but it came back online around 1:40 p.m.
Pacific Power spokesman Simon Gutierrez confirmed to KTVZ News that like last week’s outage, the circuit serving the area is on the recently announced enhanced safety settings, put into place for some areas during fire season to reduce the risk of wildfire – but also increase the chances of more and longer power outages.
Gutierrez said Thursday he’d learned from operations representatives that “yesterday’s outage was caused by a problem with a section of underground line. The outage impacted more customers because our system there is on Enhanced Safety Settings.”
He also told us that as for last week’s outage, “These were different issues, unrelated to each other.”
It’s not the only Pacific Power outage in the region. More than 700 customers in the area of the Alder Springs Fire lost power in a “wildfire emergency de-energization.”