OTEC outage leaves 750 Union County members without power near Haines

A power problem that began on Hunter Road and Summerville Road quickly turned into a larger outage west of Haines, where about 750 Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative members lost electricity and had to wait for crews to assess the damage. For households that rely on refrigeration, heating or cooling, internet service or medical equipment, the interruption was more than an inconvenience.

OTEC’s first April 22 update reported roughly 210 members out in Union County, mainly along portions of Hunter Road and Summerville Road, with a smaller outage near Cove. At that point, the utility had not given a cause or an estimated restoration time, leaving residents to guess how long they would be without power.

By 1:15 p.m., OTEC said most Union County outages had been resolved, but attention had shifted to a larger outage stretching west of Haines to Anthony Lakes. The cooperative said a crew was en route to assess the problem and begin restoration.

OTEC told customers to stay clear of downed power lines and to report outages through its customer line at 1-866-430-4265. Its outage center also offers a real-time interactive map and restoration tracking, tools that become essential when power failures move from a single road to a broader stretch of rural eastern Oregon.

The scale matters in Union County, where 26,196 people were counted in the 2020 Census. OTEC serves Baker, Grant, Harney and Union counties, operates more than 3,000 miles of overhead and underground lines, and is headquartered in Baker City with district offices in La Grande, John Day and Burns. In a county this spread out, one outage can affect travel, communications and daily routines far beyond the neighborhoods shown on a map.

The April 22 outage also fits a pattern OTEC customers have seen before. On Oct. 28, 2025, the cooperative reported about 7,294 meters out in the La Grande area, later saying 1,637 meters were still without power even after service began coming back. OTEC said that outage was caused when a worker at a local company inadvertently bumped a power line with a pipe. In July 2024, the cooperative also warned that wildfire-related public safety power shutoffs by other utilities could affect its supply and make outages last longer during emergency conditions.

For Union County residents, the immediate lesson is plain: keep a generator plan ready, know how to protect refrigerated food and powered medical devices, save the outage hotline, and treat any fallen line as dangerous until crews clear it. In a rural county, a power loss can ripple through nearly every part of a day before the lights come back on.