Power surge/flicker? Here’s what it’s about

| Utilities | West Seattle news

Notice a power surge/flicker in the past hour? Apparently at least one rippled throughout the region (though we didn’t notice anything here at WSB, we’ve received at least one note and seen other reports via Twitter) because of an explosion/fire at a substation in Redmond. Our friends at KING 5 are covering it online.

george June 16, 2011 (2:02 pm)

Yep, saw a flicker and the UPS kicked on about 1:15 or so.

luke June 16, 2011 (2:09 pm)

I work at a construction site that is about 200 yards to the south of this substation. When the substation exploded you could feel the explosion and the flames/smoke were intense. When the fire trucks arrived it looked like they were just standing by waiting for the power company for further direction.

On my way home (about 45 minutes after the explosion) there was a police escorted “specialty” fire truck that said “Seatac Airport” on the side headed towards the fire. I’m assuming it had something of use that the trucks already on scene did not. I don’t think anybody was hurt.

Traffic is really messed up in Redmond right now.

Kara June 16, 2011 (2:27 pm)

There was a slight flicker at the Montlake Library.

Tracy White June 16, 2011 (2:53 pm)

Working in Kirkland today and had power go offline for about 45 minutes. Being in IT I was a little busy for a bit…..

News of the reason spread pretty quickly; people still had their cell phones as the towers’ backup power was working. I’d advise people who don’t already to bookmark WSB on your phone so that if there’s a similar issue in West Seattle you can track and report on the news.

Posts during the traffic problems shows that many people already have, at least.

miws June 16, 2011 (3:30 pm)

Didn’t notice it down here at Nickelsville.

Oh, wait…. ;)

Mike

Lolly June 16, 2011 (3:53 pm)

No flashes noted

Jesse June 16, 2011 (4:23 pm)

We lost power completely for about 1 minute here in SODO/International District (5th & Weller)

Paula T June 16, 2011 (9:11 pm)

Just catching up after a long day – I was in my classroom at West Seattle High with students and we all noticed a quick flicker. Good to know we can count on WSB to tell us what happened :)

sun*e June 16, 2011 (11:55 pm)

WSB continues to impress me… you’re always on it! I was at my office in the Admiral area when my computer did a quick off/on and that was it. I thought that sure was weird and now the mystery is solved. Thanks WSB! :)

WSB June 17, 2011 (12:36 am)

Thanks in turn to Mike, who was the first person to e-mail and say “any reports of outages? just had an interruption” – and I had just seen the Redmond report on Twitter, and put the proverbial 2 + 2 together … TR

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