With power restored in Forest Grove, Light & Power crews head to Beaverton to help

As of at least 4:15 p.m., all Forest Grove Light & Power customers (that's the entire city and a handful of customers just outside of city limits) had their power restored following the windstorm that swept into the city Monday afternoon.

With their work completed, Light & Power crews left Forest Grove to aid Portland General Electric customers in Beaverton.

"Our crews have now responded to a mutual aid request from PGE to assist restoring power to PGE customers in the Beaverton area," said Forest Grove Light & Power Director Keith Hormann in an email to News in the Grove.

According to Hormann, the windstorm began around 4 p.m. Monday when a "strong storm cell with gusting winds crossed over Forest Grove," resulting in substantial damage to Light & Power infrastructure and knocking out power in six different locations.

"All of the damage to the electrical system happened during this initial storm cell, and all within a fifteen to twenty minute window," Hormann said.

At the height of the outage, 918 customers, which included homes and businesses, were without power.

Over the first five hours after the storm first struck, Light & Power crews sporadically restored power to nearly 850 customers.

For 69 other customers, restoration would take longer.

"The 69 customers where the most major damage occurred were out of power for approximately 11 hours," Hormann said.

Two more customers where power poles were broken saw their electricity restored Tuesday afternoon.

In total, 21 out of Light & Power's 24 staff members were part of the storm response (three were unavailable for work, Hormann said).