Conner Williams

Statesman Journal

The insulators of several power transformers at the Barnes substation in South Salem failed due to excess heat on Saturday, causing 4,784 customers to lose power for nearly two hours.

Stan Sittser, a spokesperson for Portland General Electric, which supplies the power for much of the South Salem area, said it is rare for an insulator to fail the way it did.

"It's a pretty rare occurrence, an insulator is usually pretty bulletproof," Sittser said. He said that while the failure was due to heat, the insulators have been replaced.

Sittser noted that overall, the grid did well, and that the outage in South Salem was the largest that PGE saw on Saturday.

The outage affected customers in three different geographic, denoted by zip code: 97306 saw 3,462 customers lose power; 97302 saw 1,299 people lose power; and 97317 saw 23.

Jacob Carpenter from the Willamette Valley Animal Hospital's South Salem Clinic, said he heard a loud pop outside and saw what appeared to be a power transformer blown out. The outage comes as the Salem-area hits record hot temperatures, breaking the record of 93 degrees set in 1978.

"With this heat, I don't want our food in the fridge to go bad," said affected residential customer Laura Ruiz off Sunnyside Road S. "I just bought it yesterday."

Ruiz said the traffic lights up and down Commercial Street are out, leading to stopped traffic. Note that in the case of a traffic light outage then "all drivers are to stop at the intersection, then proceed as if the intersection had stop signs controlling all approaches," according to the Department of Transportation.

Power outage impacts areas of South Salem

Arin Clements, who lives in Nomad Court near the Courthouse Gym on Commercial Street, said she called into Portland General Electric and received an automated response based on her address.

This outage comes just two days after a separate power outage occurred in South Salem that affected just under 2,300 people on the morning of June 2. Sittser said the two outages are not related and PGE does not expect an outage due to insulator failure to occur again.