Portland General Electric outages beginning Saturday, Jan 4, 2024
A relative in Portland called out of state to get help. This person is disabled since childhood and lives in assisted living. The power went out Saturday. No heat, the elevator is not working, wheelchair is not charged, one flashlight and no more batteries, her bed is a hospital bed and its stuck in a seated position. They gave her a sandwich for dinner, no hot water for tea or coffee. No one came to check on her but an elderly women in the room next to her. Someone provided one more flashlight and one person brought hot water this morning with two old pieces of toast. This person is deaf and face-times to follow lip-reading. Started calling around to help and reported the power outage at the residents to PGE on the website. Called to talk to someone and got AI until I stumped it and it refereed me to a person. This employee had a laggy computer. I did report the building houses 3x more people than reported on the website and they are all disabled or elderly. The employee said trees took out power but no estimate when it would be fixed even though it was a day later. I said these people need help because they need to charge medical equipment. I was referred to Disability, Aging and Veteran Services but it is CLOSED. Currently the outage is reported to have been caused by heavy snow and ice but it wasn't heavy snow on Saturday when the outage happened. Portland has always had wicked ice storms because of the wind off the Columbia river. This is NOT a new event.
Disability, Aging and Veteran Services CLOSED due to potential icy roads until Tuesday We provide programs and services to maintain and enhance the quality of life to assure that basic needs are met for Washington County seniors, veterans and people with disabilities. 1-503-846-3060 https://www.washingtoncountyor.gov/davs
