Power outages still impact Portland metro area Wednesday

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - While the weather may have calmed down, efforts to get the lights back on for thousands were nonstop the day after the heavy wind and rain.

At 3 p.m. Wednesday, there were just over 20,000 Portland General Electric customers still without power in the metro area.

Crews were hard at work across the city repairing damaged lines to restore power.

Alexandra Hughes in Southeast Portland says she has been using anything she can to see in the dark and keep warm.

“We had some camping stoves that we could utilize, we had headlamps, flashlights, stuff like that,” said Hughes.

Nearby at SE 22nd Ave. and SE Ellis Street, a portion of the road was closed because of a fallen tree and downed power lines. Neighbors say the tree fell and power went out Tuesday morning.

“When we woke up we were just in the kitchen doing our breakfast thing and we saw a light flash and sparks so we came out to see what was going on and we see this tree down,” said Sandy Sadowitz, who lives just steps from where the tree hit the power line.

Another neighbor also had quite a shock when part of that tree landed on a friend’s car.

“We don’t see any broken glass or anything, I think it was just the tips of the tree that got it,” said Indie Schmidt. “I heard this huge crash and I’m like ‘What was that? Is my shed still standing, are things still standing around my yard?’”

Schmidt and Sadowitz, who live across the street from one another, say PGE crews arrived shortly after the tree fell.

“We think there was a live wire,” said Sadowitz. “Either it shut down because something else happened or they shut it down because of that.”

PGE’s live outage map can be viewed here.

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