Friday was a day for cleaning up, as the high winds that battered Central Oregon over the previous two days subsided and residents started digging out from under the mess.

One of the hardest-hit spots was Bend’s Shevlin Park. Officials from the Bend Metro Park and Recreation District closed the park Friday morning due to safety concerns from unstable fallen trees and limbs that could still come down. Paul Stell, the district’s natural resource manager, said more than 200 trees fell down in the 550-acre park during the storm. Stell said he expected the park could be open again in two or three days, but first, park district employees would have to survey the area for leaning trees, broken limbs balanced in the tops of trees, and trees blocking paths and roads through the park.

“It’s a mess; it’s a real mess,” Stell said. “We’re going to be working trying to get things safe, and as soon as we do, we’ll open the park back up again.”

Stell said it’s too early to know what will become of the fallen trees.

“Five years ago, the price of lumber was such that it’d make perfect sense to salvage all this stuff, but with the price of lumber nowadays, I don’t know if it’ll pencil out. We’ll see,” he said.

Tree removers busy

Private tree care companies also had their hands full. Adam Bright from Adam Bright Tree Service said he’d hoped to spend Friday skiing, but his phone kept ringing and ringing with new reports of downed trees. Bright said his crews are working long days, and should bill for $6,000 to $7,000 in tree removal services for Thursday, Friday and today. Still, he’s getting more calls than he can handle and has handed off several jobs to other companies.

“If they could wait, we’d do it all. We wouldn’t give any of it away, but certain people can’t wait,” Bright said. “If it’s blocking their way into their house or on their house and poking a hole through it, they want it off. We try to triage the situation a little to do those people who are more in need.”

Power outages

Power utility companies were also busy Friday. The three utilities that provide power in Central Oregon all reported extensive outages Thursday but had restored power to nearly all of their customers by Friday afternoon.

Pacific Power started receiving reports of outages around 1 p.m. Thursday and had nearly 4,800 customers without power a short time later, said Paul Vogel, the utility’s director of public affairs. Most had their power back by Thursday night, he said, with around 400 people in the China Hat Road area still without power Friday morning. By Friday afternoon, only 19 homes in Prineville and eight homes in Bend were without electricity, he said.

Midstate Electric Cooperative, which provides power in Sunriver, La Pine and the rest of the south county area, had 1,200 to 1,300 customers without electricity Thursday, according to spokesman John Thomas. As of Friday, only Shelter Cove Resort at Odell Lake was still without power, Thomas said.

Central Electric Cooperative had around 1,000 customers without power at various times over the previous two days, spokesman Alan Guggenheim said, but were down to a few dozen on Friday.

As a primarily rural power provider, Central Electric has some unique problems, Guggenheim said. The utility has only six customers for every mile of power line, providing abundant opportunities for outages affecting only a few people each.

“The problems are not major problems, but they are a large number, a plethora, of small problems,” Guggenheim said.

Guggenheim said he’d been out on Couch Market Road with a repair crew Thursday, watching as they worked to remove a tree that had fallen on a line. After six hours of work, they restored power to 20 homes.

“You multiply that times 50, and that’s what you’re dealing with all day long,” he said. “You have 20 people working two, three, and four to a crew depending on the job. It just chews up the day.”