More than 2,700 people across the Vancouver area lost electricity on Sunday evening in two separate incidents, one traced to a fallen tree in Ridgefield and a larger one near Northeast 112th Avenue and Northeast 28th Street whose cause has not yet been identified. Clark Public Utilities' outage map listed two active outages for August 9, with crews already working to restore service to hundreds of customers by the time the disruption was reported.
According to KOIN.com, the smaller outage began around 4 p.m. near North 85th Avenue and Northeast 279th Street in Ridgefield, affecting a very small number of people after a tree came down onto power lines, per the utility's interactive map. The far larger outage struck just before 6 p.m. near Northeast 112th Avenue and Northeast 28th Street in the Vancouver area, and as of the report, no cause had been given for what triggered it.
Utility officials said the two outages combined impacted more than 2,700 people in the Vancouver area. Clark Public Utilities' website showed 2,718 customers still without power, while crews had already restored service to 959 customers, the outlet's report noted. KOIN 6 News said it had reached out to Clark Public Utilities for more information and planned to update its story if the utility responded.
A Reporting Portal Glitch the Night Before
The timing landed awkwardly for the utility's online tools. Clark Public Utilities had scheduled a planned maintenance window for its online outage-reporting portal the previous evening, Saturday, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., directing customers to call in outages by phone during that stretch instead, according to the utility's own outage reporting page. That maintenance wrapped up roughly a day before Sunday's outages began.
Local emergency officials have long urged residents not to flood 911 lines when the power goes out. The Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency advises people to report outages directly to Clark Public Utilities' 24/7 hotline at 360-992-8000, reserving 911 strictly for life-threatening emergencies or failing medical equipment.
Trees Remain the Top Culprit Countywide
Clark Public Utilities is a customer-owned public utility district, formed by a 1938 voter referendum, that serves more than 240,000 customers across a 628-square-mile service area in Clark County. Trees contacting overhead lines are the leading cause of outages countywide, which is why the utility trims vegetation along each mile of overhead line every three years and maintains a 10-foot clearance around its nearly 1,500 miles of distribution lines, per the utility's vegetation management program.
To further reduce storm-related outages in heavily wooded areas, the utility has been swapping standard overhead lines for tree wire coated in nonconductive material and injecting silicone into aging underground cables to extend their service life by at least 20 years, according to Clark Public Utilities. Despite Sunday's disruption, the utility's reliability metrics for outage frequency and duration remain below both Washington state and national averages, as reported by The Reflector, citing U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
Still, localized hazards can overwhelm even a well-maintained grid. In July 2023, a single vehicle crash into utility equipment at Northeast 137th Avenue and 59th Street in Northeast Vancouver knocked out power to 27,000 customers before crews restored service over four hours, according to KGW. And in December 2025, a severe Pacific Northwest windstorm cut power to more than 98,000 Clark Public Utilities customers at its peak, requiring over 200 field workers and contractors to clear fallen trees and repair damaged equipment.
What Comes Next
As of the latest report, the root cause of the larger outage near Northeast 112th Avenue and Northeast 28th Street had not been determined, and crews were continuing restoration work. Field operations for Vancouver-area outages typically run out of the utility's Vancouver Service Center at 1200 Fort Vancouver Way and the Orchards Service Center at 8600 NE 117th Avenue.
The outages come as Clark Public Utilities was wrapping up a public comment period, running from July 8 through August 7, on its draft 2024 Integrated Resource Plan Update, which guides long-term energy procurement and infrastructure investment across the county. Hoodline previously covered wind-driven outage risks across the Portland-Vancouver metro area, underscoring how frequently falling trees and weather threaten local power reliability.
