OTEC outage leaves 750 Baker County members without power

About 750 Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative members west of Haines to Anthony Lakes lost power on April 22, cutting electricity across a broad Baker County corridor where homes, outbuildings and travel routes depend on steady service. OTEC said a crew was on the way to assess the outage and begin restoration, while most Union County outages had already been resolved.

The outage was large enough to matter well beyond a single neighborhood. In a rural county like Baker, a power loss can quickly affect ranch operations, refrigeration, irrigation equipment and communications, especially when service stretches across long distances and there are few nearby backup options. The cause had not been identified as crews headed into the field.

OTEC urged members to stay clear of downed power lines and reminded residents never to touch anything in contact with them. The cooperative says people should stay at least 50 feet away from fallen lines, a warning that carries extra weight in an outage tied to possible damaged equipment or roadside hazards.

Members can report outages around the clock by calling 1-866-430-4265 or texting “outage” to 541-406-6980. OTEC says it restores power in stages, starting with transmission lines, then substations, main distribution lines, tap lines and finally individual homes, which helps explain why service in rural areas can take time to come back fully even after the initial problem is found.

The outage also fits a broader pattern for OTEC, which serves Baker, Grant, Harney and Union counties across a 6,734-square-mile territory. The cooperative says it maintains about 3,039 miles of power lines and serves 23,863 members and 32,825 meters, a reminder of how much infrastructure is spread across a sparsely populated part of eastern Oregon.

Baker County has seen larger interruptions before. In 2024, OTEC had an outage that affected 2,083 members, mainly in Haines and North Powder. Another April 2024 outage hit about 1,030 Baker City members. In 2023, a transmission-related outage affected nearly 11,000 OTEC customers in Baker and Union counties. The April 22 outage was smaller than those events, but for the 750 members left in the dark, the impact was immediate and local.