(Saturday photo, by Matt)

As promised, we followed up with Seattle City Light today about Saturday’s underground-electrical-vault problem that took out power for almost 4,000 homes and businesses. It happened right outside Spruce/LA Fitness at 39th SW/Fauntleroy Way/SW Alaska shortly after 1 pm; people reported hearing explosions, and then – as shown in the top photo – smoke began pouring out of the vault covers in the street. Some WSB commenters noted that there had been a “planned” outage in the area the night before, and in his response to our inquiry, City Light spokesperson Scott Thomsen confirmed a connection:

The underlying cause of the vault fire and outage was the failure of a piece of equipment called a j-box, which is essentially a high-voltage power strip.

The planned outage [Friday night] allowed our crews to install new equipment, including cable, which was spliced into an old cable. After it was energized, the j-box connected to the section of old cable is what failed. The crew isolated the damage and made repairs.

Seattle Fire’s time on scene was relatively short – all but one unit was cleared within less than an hour; we checked today with SFD spokesperson Lt. Harold Webb, who explained, “City Light was on scene when we arrived and quickly secured the vault and did not require further SFD standby.” But effects of the outage kept them busy, he added: “We had numerous elevator removals [in the area] due to widespread power outages.” No one was hurt. The last 130+ customers without power didn’t get it back, as noted in our updates, for almost eight hours.

Thanks for the tips about a water break at 11th and Barton in Highland Park. We just talked with Andy Ryan from Seattle Public Utilities. He says an eight-inch main is broken; they don’t know yet how the break happened but they first heard about it just after 4 this afternoon. 37 customers are affected. Crews are on the scene, but there’s no estimate of how long it’ll take to get it fixed.

Seattle Public Utilities won’t be out in Arbor Heights tonight flushing water mains after all. Its testing of a new flushing technology – previewed here a week ago – ended early. We checked in today with SPU’s Ingrid Goodwin, who told us:

We’re all done flushing utilizing the new method. We flushed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and intended to flush today and tomorrow, but we ran through all of the machine’s filters, so we had to stop.

The first two days we were able to flush two miles of pipe and remove a lot of sediment that had built up in the water mains. The water mains that we flushed were installed in the late 1940s.

We will begin analyzing the pilot results next week. But it appears it was a successful outcome and we avoided sending thousands of gallons of water down the storm drain.

While the flushing was under way earlier this week in the Genesee/Charlestown Hill area, we heard from one resident who reported a prolonged bout of brown water. Goodwin says, “We did receive calls from about a dozen customers who experienced temporary discolored water due to the flushing. Our crews performed some additional spot flushing to help clear the discoloration.” That’s been a risk of conventional flushing too, which has been under way off and on for several months now as SPU works to clear sediment (basically, rust) from the lines.

(Seattle Public Utilities photo)

The West Seattle Flush goes on – with a new twist. 7 months after Seattle Public Utilities announced it would start flushing local water mains to clear the sediment that resulted in brown-water problems in a variety of circumstances, they’re about to deploy new technology.

Next week (Nov 7 -11) SPU will be in two West Seattle neighborhoods testing a new water main flushing technology that eliminates the need to discharge thousands of gallons of water into storm drains.

The new method consists of a utility trailer (photo above) with a filtering system. Connections between the trailer and water main are made with large diameter hoses attached to fire hydrants. Water used to flush the water main is circulated through the filtering system and returned back into the water main.

The attached two map show the two areas where we’ll be flushing water mains and using this new method. I’ve also enclosed the public notice sent to Arbor Heights residents, where we’ll be flushing at the end of the week (Nov 9 -11).

You can read that notice here.

(Click map for full-size PDF version)

The second phase of Seattle Public Utilities‘ West Seattle water-main flushing is about to start; the map above shows where the water pipes already have been flushed, and where the utility is going to be flushing starting this Sunday night.

If you missed the run-up to phase 1, SPU reminds you that it “is performing this work to help maintain water quality and reduce the occurrence of discolored water that some West Seattle customers have been experiencing. Flushing won’t eliminate discolored water, but it will help decrease it.” The “sediment” that leads to discolored water, SPU explains, comes from a rust buildup. (We had first word of the flushing plan back in March; the work began in April.)

Phase 2, according to the SPU notice sent to residents in the work zone (see the entire notice here), will involve work Sundays through Thursdays, 10 pm-5 am, over the next four to six weeks. Signs will go up in advance at hydrants that will be opened as part of the flushing. (This WSB story shows how the process works and what’s done at the work zones.)

SPU also notes, “When crews are flushing nearby, customers will experience discolored water, which should clear quickly once crews are done flushing the water main. Running the cold water for a few minutes can also help clear the discoloration.” If you have discolored water that doesn’t clear quickly, or any other water-quality problem, SPU’s 24-hour emergency line is 206-386-1800.

P.S. Here’s a deeper dive into your water’s backstory.

7:20 AM: Thanks to the Atlas Place residents who texted to share the news of a water break in the south Beach Drive SW area. They woke up to no water, contacted Seattle Public Utilities, and were told about the break. We’ll be checking with SPU to find out about the extent of it and how long it might take to fix.

9:18 AM: Went to check it out firsthand – the water is coming up in the street in the 6700 block of Beach Drive, not far north of Lincoln Park, and an SPU crew (as shown in our photo above) is on scene.

9:26 AM: Just talked to an SPU spokesperson who says that traffic will be blocked for the repairs, which will likely take “three or four hours.” The break is in an 8-inch water main, likely just a failure of old infrastructure, and they believe it’s affecting water service to 25-30 customers (households, since this is a residential area). We’ll check back later in the day so we can update when the crew’s finished.

2:43 PM: An area resident says the water’s back and the crew is wrapping up:

That’s the pipe problem behind the break, the resident was told.

3:46 PM: Seattle City Light has just restored power to the Junction businesses/residences that have been out in the aftermath of this morning’s Junction construction-site crane-in-wires incident (WSB coverage here) that left two workers in critical condition. Some businesses had closed because of the outage, while we found at least three that were able to stay open. We had a crew in the area just before power came back on, and we’re heading back over momentarily for an update, and to check on whether SW Oregon has reopened.

4:41 PM: Yes, the road has reopened.

1:21 PM: Thanks to the resident who texted to report a water outage in the 8100 block of 27th SW. We advised a call to the Seattle Public Utilities hotline (206-386-1800), and the resident reported back that SPU is working on a water-line break in the 27th SW/SW Kenyon vicinity. We’re checking with SPU to find out more.

2:07 PM: SPU spokesperson Ingrid Goodwin tells WSB that the break is on an 8-inch pipe at the location mentioned above [map]. “SPU crews have throttled the main, which means some customers are experiencing a reduction in pressure and while others may be out of water. This break is impacting about 25 homes and businesses in the area. At this time, I don’t have an estimated time when the repair will be complete and water restored.”

3:17 PM: Update from Goodwin: Repairs will take several hours, so the water will likely be back on between 7 and 9 pm.

(WSB photo: City Light crew converting streetlights this week along SW Thistle)

Back when Seattle City Light started converting streetlights to LEDs, the conversion was initially planned for residential streets only.

Then, the utility decided in 2013 that it would be OK to convert arterial streetlights too, and while the subsequent work began in the north part of the city, this summer, that conversion has been moving full speed ahead in West Seattle.

This past week, we noticed a crew working late at night on the streetlights along the two arterials closest to WSB HQ, California SW and SW Thistle, which are now fully switched over in the Gatewood/Fauntleroy area. So we checked in with Seattle City Light on the conversion status, as well as the reason work was being done at night (while we’re still working at 11:45 pm, seemed a little noisy for residents who sleep more “normal” hours).

Spokesperson Scott Thomsen explained, “Crews have been working nights since June 1. This shift change was done mostly due to Metro trolley routes and to avoid disruption to busy arterial streets when they are most busy and for crew safety.” The night work is expected to end within the next month or so; in the meantime, he says, crews are reminded to be mindful of the noise, but while the “tool they use to loosen and tighten bolts does make a ‘ratcheting’ type noise” – this was the observation made in our note asing about it – “The crew will typically spend less than 10 minutes at any given light.”

Thomsen wasn’t sure how much longer the work, now in the service area south of SW Brandon, will be going on in West Seattle; though we do a fair amount of night driving around West Seattle, we haven’t seen the crews since the work close to our neighborhood around midweek. He says, “The scheduling estimates are not that specific since the crews work in rows across the service territory.”

Around the city: “A little more than 16,000 arterial lights have been converted to LED and our contractor will continue with conversions through December. In 2017, we should complete the arterial conversions.” Checking our archives, this appears to be an acceleration, as it was just last year that West Seattle arterial conversions weren’t expected to start BEFORE 2017.

Also from the archives: As this WSB story from 2010 shows, West Seattle was a test area when the city started planning the non-arterial streetlight conversions.

BACKSTORY: More background on the LED streetlight program can be found on this page of City Light’s site.)

10:24 AM: Thanks to Susan for the tip – power is out for what Seattle City Light says is 108 customers (homes/businesses) in The Arroyos and vicinity. The cause isn’t yet known, but the utility hopes to have power back by mid-afternoon, as of the latest guesstimate.

P.S. This is the same footprint and customer count as the outage this past May that lasted more than 24 hours.

11:21 AM: Scott Thomsen of City Light tells WSB that the outage has been traced to “equipment failure” and they’re now hoping to have the power back by 4:30 pm.

7:36 PM: As pointed out in comments, it’s not fixed yet and the restoration guesstimate is now past midnight. SCL says an underground cable is what failed.

11:05 PM: Still out, says the City Light outage-tracker map, now pushing the guesstimate to 4 am-ish.

6:35 AM: JL says in comments that the power returned at 5 am – that would have been after more than 20 hours.