West Seattle, White Center power outage hits more than 3,500 homes/businesses; most restored after 45 minutes

| Delridge | Highland Park | Utilities | West Seattle news | Westwood | White Center

(Map of outage area, from Seattle City Light website)

12:38 AM: Thanks for the texts: Seattle City Light‘s outage map says more than 3,500 homes/businesses have lost power, mostly in southeast West Seattle and White Center. No word yet on the cause.

12:53 AM: The map now has the “estimated restoration” time of 7 am, but we always add the reminder, that’s a guesstimate and it could be much sooner, or much later. SCL is still investigating the cause.

1:15 AM: Commenter SteveMG reports seeing SCL and emergency responders in the 8th/Roxbury vicinity.

1:18 AM: We’re getting some reports of power restored – mostly from South Delridge. No change in the outage-map total yet but sometimes it lags.

1:25 AM: Now the map’s caught up with the restoration reports – 294 customers (homes/businesses) still without power, in White Center. Here’s the updated map:

1:36 AM: Along with SteveMG, a commenter on our partner site White Center Now also mentions what seemed like an underground “explosion” at 8th/Roxbury. Here’s what SCL tweeted about the cause, without mentioning a specific location:

Crews have identified an equipment failure in an underground vault as the cause for the White Center-W. Seattle outage.

— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) August 31, 2016

6:27 AM: Power has since been fully restored.

M August 31, 2016 (12:43 am)

We lost power @ 12:30. On 17th between Barton & Henderson.

SteveMG August 31, 2016 (1:04 am)

Word literally on the street: underground explosion at 8th and Roxbury. Fire trucks, utilities, and police on site. There is a utility truck checking out a transformer on 9th Ave sw, as I type this.

WSB August 31, 2016 (1:05 am)

Thanks! Nothing on the SFD log – are you seeing this on the county side?

SteveMG August 31, 2016 (1:06 am)

WSB August 31, 2016 (1:09 am)

County. Thank you.

AMD August 31, 2016 (1:16 am)

Just came back on here in Highland Park

SteveMG August 31, 2016 (1:17 am)

Lights are back on 9th!

Westside August 31, 2016 (1:18 am)

Power back on on 17th

Fresh Flours Bakery August 31, 2016 (1:18 am)

1:17am – power is back @ Fresh Flours Bakery – 9410 Delridge Way SW. Now we can start prepping & baking!

WSB August 31, 2016 (1:23 am)

That’s good news!

Jennifer August 31, 2016 (1:21 am)

Just came back on again, thank goodness!

miws August 31, 2016 (1:26 am)

9000 block 16th: power went out around 12:30, (BiPap machine not running woke me up) called SCL hotline, they were aware, no ETA at that time. Came back on around 1:15.

Mike

WSB August 31, 2016 (1:27 am)

Thanks! It appears 90 percent of the original outage zone got it back after about 45 minutes. Now we’re down to just under 300, all in White Center.

Hoku August 31, 2016 (1:30 am)

So odd to see such a large power outage as I was driving home. It’ll be interesting to learn the cause. Thank you WSB for being on it!

WSB August 31, 2016 (1:36 am)

SCL confirms “underground equipment failure” – I’m adding their tweet. In addition to SteveMG, a commenter on our White Center site http://whitecenternow.com also mentions what seemed like an “explosion” underground at 8th/Roxbury.

Stacy August 31, 2016 (3:10 am)

Well the lights are kinda on in some parts of white center, and then again some are not. The houses here are all dark, but the street lights are on. I know there was a loud noise an the an explosion on the corner of 8th/Roxbury.

Stacy

miws August 31, 2016 (9:22 am)

Huge Kudos to SCL for getting most service restored in just 45 minutes!

I know their ETA’ s of service restoration are estimates, as WSB always points out, and that actual restoration can be several hours on either side if the ETA, but it’s nice to have had such a large outage, in the middle of the night, be mostly restored in such a short time.

Mike