Posted: Tuesday, December 4, 2007 12:00 am
Downed trees, power outages not major problems for most
High winds and heavy rains from a two storms caused slides, fallen trees and high water in northwest Oregon on Sunday and Monday.
Lebanon and Linn County escaped significant problems, though residents were without power at times.
According to information from the Oregon Department of Transportation, the most serious damage was in a triangle from Waldport to Astoria to Portland, where numerous highways were closed due to high water, slides and fallen trees and thousands of people lost power.
The Lebanon Police Department responded to alarm activations caused by power going off and then on all day Sunday. One line came down in the 800 block of W. Vine Street about 1:30 p.m. A tree was split down the middle in the 300 block of E. Ash Street about 3:30 p.m.
On Monday morning city maintenance crews found and cleaned up two broken limbs, one at Ralston Park and one at River Park, said Rod Sell, department manager. For the most part, the drainage system was able to handle the rain, he said, because the rain came in waves, with dryer spells in between.
The Linn County Sheriff's office experienced no major issues due to storm weather, just a few limbs down and a few alarms, said Capt. Bruce Riley.
In Lebanon and Sweet Home, more than 2,500 Pacific Power customers lost power about 1 p.m. on Sunday. All but 195 were restored by shortly after 3 p.m. At 9 p.m., 732 Lebanon customers lacked power, which was restored to all but 65 customers by 1:30 Monday afternoon, said spokesperson Tom Gauntt.
Mary Zimmerman of Consumer's Power said the company's customers in the Lebanon and Sweet Home area were affected Sunday afternoon when Bonneville Power lost some transmission lines in the early afternoon. Customers along Townsend Road near Sodaville and Upper Berlin Road southeast of Lebanon, without electricity on Monday morning, had it by mid-afternoon.
Some local businesses were forced to close during the outage, but not all.
Bi-Mart stayed open with a back-up generator that ran the registers and half the lights. Safeway also kept its doors open, though the lights were dim.
Wal-Mart and Roth's Family Market both closed during the outage then re-opened when the power came back on. Wal-Mart manager Pam Zieman said the store has emergency power that operates freezers and some lights but not registers. Roth's manager Dave Madarus said the store remained open for a short time, but the battery back-up on the registers is only good for 30 minutes.
Shari's had to close, although people who already had been served were able to finish their meals.
Bing's Family Kitchen remained open. The gas-power kitchen kept working and waitresses put candles on all the tables. The register didn't work, so bills were figured the old-fashioned way, by humans doing math.