Central Electric Prepares for August Eclipse

Central Electric Cooperative and its employees are prepared for the August 21 Solar Eclipse event. The tri-county area is expected to see an influx of at least 200,000 people during the event. While many goods and services in the area will be taxed, the cooperative wants members to know it has no concerns about electricity demands. CEC’s system is designed to handle peak demand during the winter months, which is much higher than summer’s peak demand levels.

The major concern is the extremely high numbers of vehicles that will be present and how they will affect unplanned outage response times.  Central Electric has increased the number of crews that will be on standby during non-business hours during the eclipse weekend. The cooperative will also interface directly with local and regional emergency management services’ communications centers. Local emergency response agencies are ready to work with CEC and other critical service utilities to help minimize transportation challenges when our crews must respond to an outage and make repairs.

There has been some concern within the local communities about communication issues related to high usage of cell phone systems in the area. CEC crews do use cell phones to communicate, but they will also have radio contact with each other and with the emergency communications centers.

For tips on how to prepare for the eclipse event, check out the Central Oregon Emergency Information Network’s website.