Power failure hits parts of west Medford on Tuesday

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A cross arm on a power pole near Columbus Avenue and Main Street broke shortly after noon on Tuesday, cutting electricity to a broad swath of downtown and west Medford.

In all, 2,020 customers lost power for part of the afternoon, Pacific Power spokesman Tom Gaunt said.

Medford's City Hall was among the locations left in the dark, but offices stayed open and work that was possible without electricity or with some backup power continued during the outage, officials said.

The outage also affected traffic lights and tied up traffic at some intersections across town.

The broken cross arm caused an electrical line to droop onto another line at 12:12 p.m. The line was scorched, then dropped to the ground, Gaunt explained.

Crews had to repair the broken part of the pole and replace the scorched line. While they worked, power was rerouted across the grid to gradually bring some customers back on line. Repairs were completed and service restored to all at 4:12 p.m.

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