TALENT, Ore.- Pacific Power President Ryan Flynn apologized to residents of Talent after the town repeatedly lost power this summer.
“This is the heart of our company; this is where we serve most of our customers. I take a lot of pride in what our company does in supporting our communities. We are singularly focused on the safety of our communities and our customers,” Flynn said.
Flynn made the trip from Portland to Southern Oregon on Wednesday to meet with residents in Talent.
The small city has lost power more than 40 times this year.
Back in July, when the outages first started happening, Pacific Power issued a statement saying it understands outages are inconvenient.
But Flynn says that word no longer gives the situation justice.
“It’s not an inconvenience, these outages are hardships, particularly [to] the medically vulnerable,” Flynn said.
These outages have ranged from one to almost 24 hours long in the Southern Oregon heat.
Flynn says a record-breaking fire season has made it difficult to keep the power on, as the last thing they want to do is start a wildfire.
“It took 100 years to build our grid, and we know that it doesn’t operate the same in an extreme weather environment. What it means is that more often than not, we’re having to choose between safety or reliability as opposed to where we’ve been which is safe and reliable,” Flynn said.
Flynn says Pacific Power has already put a lot of plans in action to help prevent further outages.
“We’ve installed additional fault indicators on the line, which allows us to locate faults quicker. We’ve installed four new reclosers, which, essentially, allow us to sectionalize a system, identify the fault locations, reduce customer impacts, and restore customers quicker. We’ve included additional tree trimming and we’ve installed some animal diverter technology on our system,” Flynn explained.
Talent residents say they understand certain things the company has had to do, but what they don’t understand is why there is a lack of communication.
“The bottom line for me is not hearing anything from Pacific Power for three months,” one resident said.
“People are busy, I work ten-hour days. Multiple methods of communication would be helpful,” another resident added.
“Send a message or text or something that says ‘these are the things we’re trying to do’-” a resident began as the crowd began to chime in.
“Communication!” someone shouted.
“That, I think, was one of the most difficult things is that there was nothing from PP&L,” the resident finished.
Flynn says he understands these frustrations and that’s why he came down personally, to address all questions and concerns.
He says everyone at Pacific Power has learned their lesson, and they’ll be better at communicating not just before but throughout fire season.
“I’m the president of the company. The performance of the system is my responsibility, and I take full responsibility for it.”
Rogue Valley State Senator Jeff Golden says he’s impressed with how the company has reacted to the community’s outcry.
“In my experience with corporations of this size, I don’t find that happening a lot, and what’s more likely is they send out public relations people and, you know, you still don’t get completely clear answers to your questions. You folks have been through a long, hard, hot summer. Some of you really have. There’s a united interest in doing everything possible to be sure that it doesn’t happen again,” Golden said.
Flynn says re-imagining the grid is not going to happen overnight and there is the possibility of more outages this year and next summer.
He says the performance of Pacific Power has not lived up to his expectations and things will change.
“We will be better next wildfire season. We’re making improvements to the system to make it more resilient. We’ve learned a lot about our system this summer and we will be better,” Flynn said.
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