UMATILLA — After a power outage at Two Rivers Correctional Institution left approximately 600 inmates largely in darkness on the prison’s east side for more than a week during a surge in COVID-19 cases, the power is “back and running as normal,” Jennifer Black, a communications manager for the Oregon Department of Corrections, said in an email to the East Oregonian on Thursday, Dec. 24.

The power outage was the result of two wires shorting and exploding in a conduit underground after 20 years of degradation, which affected other wires and left part of the prison in the dark, according to prison officials. The power outage affected the facility’s physical plant, security, food and housing units, a public information officer at Two Rivers said.

The power outage came as the prison experienced an outbreak of coronavirus cases, as first reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting.

On Dec. 3 and Dec. 4, two employees at the prison tested positive. Then, corrections staff transferred 10 COVID-19-positive inmates from Deer Ridge Correctional Institution in Madras to the medical isolation unit at Two Rivers on Dec. 10 — the same day that two additional inmates at Two Rivers tested positive for COVID-19.

The following day, five more inmates tested positive.

By Dec. 18, 45 additional inmates and four staff at the prison had tested positive for COVID-19, according to reporting from OPB.

— The Associated Press and Oregon Public Broadcasting

contributed to this report.