A large tree downed in a weekend ice storm sits atop power lines on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021 in Lake Oswego, Ore. Nearly 150,000 customers remained without power Wednesday in and around Portland, Oregon, nearly a week after a massive snow and ice storm swept into the Pacific Northwest, taking out hundreds of miles of power lines as ice-laden trees toppled.
In this photo provided by Chris Moore, a downed tree tangled up with power lines blocks the road leading out of a neighborhood in Lake Oswego, Ore., on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021. More than 150,000 customers remain without power in the greater Portland, Ore., region nearly a week after a massive ice storm downed power lines and sent trees crashing onto houses and blocked roads.
Downed electrical equipment sit on the pavement along S. Gerber Road in Oregon City, Ore., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has called on the National Guard to go door-to-door in areas hardest hit by last weekend’s ice storm to make sure residents have enough food and water.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — It could take up to another week to restore power to all the remaining customers in the wake of an ice storm that wreaked havoc on the electrical grid in greater Portland, Oregon, beginning more than a week ago, a utility official said.
Almost 39,000 customers remained without power on Sunday after Portland General Electric said it had restored power to more than 14,000 customers on Saturday. The utility said more than 400 crews were at work trying to restore power to remaining homes and businesses.
The worst ice storm in 40 years knocked out power to more than 350,000 residents at its peak and killed five people, including four who died from carbon monoxide poisoning as they tried to stay warm.
It could take as long as seven days to fully restore power, said Portland General Electric spokeswoman Elizabeth Lattanner. Some customers have experienced multiple outages, she said.
The damage and dangerous conditions left behind by the storm that started Feb. 12 were the worst in the utility’s history, according to officials.
“We would restore power in one area, move on to the next and then have to go back to that area because additional trees fell or something similar,” Lattanner said.
One-quarter of customers lost power multiple times over the course of the three-day storm as ice-laden trees fell on lines. A layer of ice an inch thick coated power lines and trees, adding 1,000 pounds of extra weight to each span of wire from pole to pole, PGE said.
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