UPDATE: Another downed pole – this time north of Morgan Junction

8:39 PM: Thanks to Andy for the photo. For the second time today, a downed utility pole is blocking a major West Seattle street. This time, it’s California SW between Graham and Raymond. No info yt on the circumstances.

8:45 PM: Readers tell us this one did NOT involve a crash – the pole just fell. No injuries reported.

8:57 PM: In comments, Austin says the pole fell on his car, and that the pole was damaged by termites. Photos:

Meantime, Andy reports city crews are on the scene.

9:29 PM: The road has reopened.

Austin V May 10, 2020 (8:47 pm)

It fell onto my car…termites are the cause. Is the city checking these poles for termites regularly!? One very close to my house is leaning!

WSB May 10, 2020 (9:01 pm)

Ouch. Sorry to hear that. We covered last year what to do if you see a leaning pole:
https://westseattleblog.com/2019/05/utilities-outage-planned-saturday-for-pole-replacement-plus-what-to-do-if-you-see-a-problem-pole/
Frog May 10, 2020 (9:51 pm)

Probably the same consultant who inspected the bridge is also checking utility poles. I bet there is a report filed somewhere that says “termites doing conga line; continue to observe.”
- k May 11, 2020 (1:51 pm)
  
  Thank you. I love your humor!
CabanaMom May 11, 2020 (8:36 am)

Austin, this happened to me several years ago when my car was parked at work. A city pole fell on it and damaged the hood. I was able to contact the city’s Claims Department and they paid for the damage. Good Luck!

M.B. May 10, 2020 (9:45 pm)

Sorry about your car, but at least no one was physically hurt. I know mentally thus is stress no one needs right now.

Austin V May 11, 2020 (8:10 am)

Yes, very lucky! The car just has cosmetic damage, but I’m sure trying to get the city to fix it will not be a smooth process.
- PL May 11, 2020 (10:12 am)
  
  I worked in the insurance industry for 20 years. File the claim with your own insurance. They will do the leg work on getting reimbursed. This is a no fault accident and you won’t see a hike in premium. Furthermore, you pay a premium so let your insurance company do the work.

Morgan May 10, 2020 (10:27 pm)

Falling poles..falling bridges….all falling apart.need to get revenues and infrastructure working back at basics. somehow.

Poles falling all over west seattle and marginal way last couple years. They must be ancient.

Joe May 11, 2020 (4:55 am)

Termites eat rotten wood. They are a bad sign, but not the source of the problem.

Brian May 11, 2020 (7:01 am)

Instead of replacing old poles with bigger poles Seattle City Light should be placing the utilities underground in conduit.

Ice May 11, 2020 (10:21 am)

Yes, this is what most of the industrialized world does. Not sure why we don’t do that in the US.
- bill May 11, 2020 (1:25 pm)
  
  Money. Undergrounding electric lines takes lots of money.Years ago a new neighbor introduced themselves at the block watch party by proposing undergrounding the power lines for just $10,000 per lot. Our lines are still on poles.
  - Ice May 11, 2020 (11:04 pm)
    
    Yes, you are right. I spent some time reading about this and it was quite interesting. Retrofitting for underground utilities is quite a bit more expensive than one would think.
  - Brian May 12, 2020 (10:11 pm)
    
    Yes burying utilities would be initially more expensive but the long term benefits I believe justify the expense. Open sewer trenches are much cheaper than burried pipes but we managed to foot that bill.
trickycoolj May 11, 2020 (3:37 pm)

The downside is you won’t get upgrades like us here in high point where we can’t get high speed gigabit internet because CenturyLink won’t upgrade the underground lines to fiber.
- Brian May 12, 2020 (10:03 pm)
  
  Seattle City Light should pull their own fiber and sell last mile access to the Internet as an add-on to their electric service.
  - Rumbles May 13, 2020 (5:07 pm)
    
    They probably don’t because that is expensive.

KM May 11, 2020 (7:02 am)

There has been some utility pole replacement by City Light going on in our neighborhood during the past few weeks—I wonder how their replacement schedule works. The one they replaced on our street looked pretty old.

Joel rogers May 11, 2020 (7:39 am)

file a damage claim with the city – you use your insurance and your rates will go up…let the city pay for it..it’s their fault.

waikikigirl May 11, 2020 (6:39 pm)

Agree don’t involve your insurance…nothing ever good comes with that!

mjc May 11, 2020 (9:07 am)

Fascinating fact, from a cousin of mine that inventoried power/light poles in the mid west for a large utility, there are many, many poles in the inventory that are approaching 100 years old and in good “health” and structurally sound. I never knew they could last so long. Not always, of course, but…

Boop May 11, 2020 (11:45 am)

A testament to the chemicals that preserve them!

Jim May 11, 2020 (9:39 am)

I had someone from a regional utility a long time ago say:For the first 20 years, the pole holds the wires up.For the next 20 years, the wires hold the pole up.

Matt P May 11, 2020 (10:57 am)

Maybe someday the scourge that are utility poles will be replaced by buried wires.

heyalki May 11, 2020 (1:13 pm)

yes please!

Sillygoose May 11, 2020 (11:07 am)

Several neighborhoods have all utilities under ground this areas isn’t a high value zip code. Genesse Hill all under ground, behind McDonalds all underground. I agree this should be something put in place soon for all of us.

Sparky May 12, 2020 (8:06 am)

The residential neighborhoods with underground power have it because the property owners paid for it. The trouble with underground utilities is that the older stuff wasn’t put in conduit – just laid in a trench on a bed of sand. When the start to fail, it can cost 30-40k to replace it.

heyalki May 11, 2020 (1:13 pm)

ah yes, the literally crumbling infrastructure

Dale May 11, 2020 (1:13 pm)

You need to be quick about filing a claim with the City. https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/FAS/FilingADamageClaim/Seattle-claim-for-damages-form.pdf

John May 11, 2020 (3:03 pm)

The city is terrible about maintenance on poles and horribly ineffective at managing costs. There was a poll near me that not only was leaning that has a bow in it. They brought out a replacement pole and allowed it to sit for about a week. then one day I came home and there were half a dozen trucksand it looked like they were going to replace the pole but all they ended up doing was adding a second guy wire and taking the replacement Pole away. all that time money and effort wasted to bring the pole out only to take it away is absurd

Linda Kustok May 11, 2020 (6:34 pm)

Why is it the City of Seattle always waits for something to fail be it our bridges, our terrible roads, ancient telephone poles & overgrown public grass on parking strips are out of control!! Really ridiculous!!

Sparky May 12, 2020 (8:09 am)

Burying the power and telecom lines would be a great stimulus project. It would probably take about sixty years, electric rates would probably be quadrupled, and every property owner would be on the hook to convert their buildings to underground service (at about 30-40k per property)

Sorry, comment time is over.