Outage Map
Electricity powers our lives. We depend on it for nearly everything we do. Central Electric Cooperative understands how frustrating it can be when you are without it. The most familiar phrase we hear during an outage is, “How long will it take?”
We understand. It can take time, but our line crews won’t rest until they fix the outage, following a prioritized restoration process to ensure their safety and the safety of our members and their communities.
Power outages are never convenient and happen for various reasons:
- Planned maintenance or upgrades. CEC invests heavily in strengthening its infrastructure all year to improve system resiliency and maintain the mission of providing safe, reliable power to its members.
Central Electric Cooperative sometimes schedules outages to upgrade equipment or perform maintenance. While inconvenient, these outages are necessary to prevent larger, unplanned disruptions.
When CEC plans an outage, it first contacts affected members to inform them when the outage will occur and how long it will last.
However, members aren’t always aware. Ensure your contact information is current with CEC to help us communicate more effectively with you. - Severe weather events. In Central Oregon, winter and summer storms are the leading cause of power outages. High winds, snow, ice, heavy rain, and lightning can damage power lines, poles, and substations. During storms, falling branches, trees, or other foreign objects may make contact with power lines, leaving neighborhoods in the dark.
- Equipment failure. Like your appliances at home, our equipment can unexpectedly fail. While CEC routinely patrols its power lines and inspects equipment for damage to minimize failures, they can still occur, requiring crews to locate and make repairs when they happen.
- Animal interference. Occasionally, small wildlife—such as squirrels or birds—find their way into a substation or transformer, inadvertently causing power disruptions. It’s a common occurrence and challenging to prevent.
- Human error or accidents. Construction work, digging into underground power lines, or vehicles colliding with utility poles are common human-related causes of power outages.
- Public Safety Power Shutoffs. When an area we serve is at high risk for wildfire, it may require us to proactively deenergize power lines to protect a community. A PSPS is a last resort safety measure tool. It is implemented in extreme circumstances, such as weather-related red flag warnings or in an emergency when public safety officials request us to deenergize a line during a threatening event to protect human life, homes, and structures.
Steps CEC Takes to Restore Power
Restoring power after an outage is a coordinated effort involving specialized personnel, advanced technology, and clear prioritization, with safety being the highest priority. When CEC receives notice of outages, key personnel involved in the restoration process are alerted.
- Assessing the damage. The process begins with identifying the cause of the outage. CEC uses outage management systems and smart-grid technology to pinpoint the affected areas. Field crews then look for, find, and determine the necessary steps to make the repairs safely.
- Prioritizing repairs. Restoration efforts prioritize critical infrastructure, such as hospitals and emergency services. Next, they focus on areas with the most affected members.
- Repairing or replacing equipment. Crews repair downed power lines and replace damaged transformers and poles as needed. Following severe damage, rebuilding parts of the grid may be required, which can extend restoration times.
- Reenergizing. Before restoring power, crews make needed repairs to ensure everything works correctly and safely, including inspecting each affected section of the line. Depending on the situation, crews might have to restore the power incrementally to avoid overloading the grid. These safety precautions may extend outage time.
- Communicating with member-owners. Throughout the process, CEC’s member services team updates local media and members via its website, cec.coop, and social media, like Facebook and X. Additional communication is issued for prolonged outages and PSPS.
Challenges in Power Restoration
Restoring power is not without its challenges. Adverse weather may make it impossible to begin repairs right away.
With 5,300 square miles of service territory, outages occur in remote areas, requiring additional time for crews to get to the location.
CEC’s line crews often face severe conditions, including heavy snow, high winds, and extreme temperatures, while repairing damage and restoring power.
How Can You Help?
When a power outage occurs, CEC prioritizes restoring your power as safely and efficiently as possible. To help, call CEC to report an outage at (541) 548-2144.
To help prevent outages, members can notify us when they see birds building a nest on a power pole or vegetation encroaching on power lines and stay alert when working or playing near electrical equipment.
Most importantly, if you see downed power lines, stay back and call 911 or CEC right away.
Power outages happen. Knowing what causes them and the work involved in restoring power helps everyone understand the process. While we can’t always give an exact timeline, our crews work safely to get the lights back on.