The Eugene Water and Electric Board held an open house last night. As KLCC’s Brian Bull reports, the event followed one of the biggest outages the utility’s had to tackle.
Dozens of people streamed in, to learn how EWEB responds to outages, like December’s…which affected roughly 24,000 customers.
Shelley Fort went six days in the dark. But she appreciated EWEB's service.
“They had to bring a big truck in to get to the lines back there to work on them, and they had to saw through the fence, break it down to get in there," recalls Fort.
"And EWEB left a name and number to call to get the fence repaired. He immediately came out and fixed the fence, and I’m very thrilled with how well the fence looks!”
Brian McMurray says the December outage was the third he’s experienced in eight years.
“It’s just not fun. Gets old after awhile," he says. "We went and stayed with our son, but the cat was in the house, or we’re back and forth and…the house just kept getting colder and colder.”
McMurray says he still appreciates EWEB's willingness to hear him out. EWEB Commissioner Dick Helgeson says all feedback is helpful.
“Because relative to something like a Cascadia earthquake, this was perhaps just a wakeup call for things that could happen in the future," McMurray tells KLCC.
"So we want to improve our capabilities and listen to customers to do things that help them for the future.”
And an EWEB board meeting tonight allows public comments, with each person allowed up to three minutes.
