Around 300 Salem residents lost power during an outage Wednesday planned by Portland General Electric for repairs as temperatures hit the 90s.
The repairs required an outage, which the utility started at 8:40 a.m. Wednesday before restoring power to customers around 1:30 p.m.
PGE spokeswoman Allison Dobscha said the recent heat advisory the National Weather Service issued for the Salem area was only for Tuesday.
The agency recorded a high of 92 degrees Wednesday.
The repairs “involved reenergizing new underground wires to reduce reliability concerns for the area,” Dobscha said in an email Wednesday afternoon.
The outage impacted some neighborhoods near the Salem Municipal Airport, including Lakeside Village and Paradise Island.
Dobscha said completing the work ahead of the storm season is expected to significantly lower the risk of lengthy or unplanned outages for the area in the future.
“We know any outage can be frustrating, especially on a hot day, and we appreciate customers’ understanding as our crews completed this critical work,” she said.
This story was updated after Portland General Electric provided additional information.
Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.
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Ardeshir Tabrizian has covered criminal justice and housing for Salem Reporter since September 2021. As an Oregon native, his award-winning watchdog journalism has traversed the state. He has done reporting for The Oregonian, Eugene Weekly and Malheur Enterprise.
