Electrical utility leaders in the Pacific Northwest watched skies and weather forecasts anxiously in the first months of 1973. Below-normal winter precipitation and a dry spring meant a thin mountain snowpack, diminished runoffs, and trouble for hydropower. In April, Bonneville curtailed 500 megawatts of electricity to its Direct Service Industry customers. Hydroelectric supplies continued to shrink; on August 16 utilities announced a program of voluntary cutbacks of electrical usage. Utilities and their customers performed well, reported the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee, and demand decreased by 5.6 percent. Oregon's Governor Tom McCall issued an order banning decorative, advertising, and display lighting in the state. Still, the region faced deficits and had to import expensive power from beyond the region. Relief came with autumn rains, and heavy rainfall in November ended the shortage. But planners remained concerned. “The future outlook for the Pacific Northwest is not optimistic,” the report stated. “Curtailment possibilities exist for the next four years and longer if new generation is delayed. Shortage of other fuels is occasioning conversion to electric energy, especially for residential heating and industrial process heating.” In Bonneville's 1973 Annual Report, Administrator Donald Hodel described the drought as an “immediate power crisis of potentially staggering dimensions.”

If the 1973 drought was a regional warning, international developments that year sounded louder alarms. U.S. reliance on foreign petroleum had grown rapidly. Crude oil output in the United States peaked in 1970 and then declined; petroleum net imports nearly tripled between 1964 and 1973.