UPDATE: Big power outage, initially stretching from southeast West Seattle to Burien

| Utilities | West Seattle news

6:43 PM: Thanks for the tips. The Seattle City Light map shows a big outage affecting parts of Riverview/Highland Park but mostly stretching further south, into Burien – 6,320 homes and businesses. It started just after 6:30 pm. No word on the cause yet.

7:22 PM: The Myers/Olson light is out, as are many in Burien. Remember that means an all-way stop.

7:26 PM: About a thousand customers – including most if not all of those who were affected in WS – are back on.

7:54 PM: The outage – now stretching southward from Top Hat into Burien – is blamed on “equipment failure.”

8:40 PM: Down to 657 customers. We’ll follow up tomorrow to get a more-specific description of what failed.

9:50 PM: Got the info tonight after all. SCL spokesperson Julie Moore says, “The outage was caused by a broken cross arm on a pole, which brought wires down. Once the cause was located, we were able to restore power to most customers (all but ~650 of the original 6,300). Crews will keep working until the rest of the customers are restored, which we’re estimating could take several hours.”

2:11 AM: City Light says everyone’s back on.

Tyler Jones June 15, 2021 (6:52 pm)

This is starting to become a trend. What is causing these problems? As a lifelong burien/white center resident i have faith in my community but if reoccurring outages become the normal I will leave. Is the infrastructure failing? What’s is the cause of this?

alison guinn June 15, 2021 (7:59 pm)

Maybe make some preparations so you are prepared. I think this will be a problem everywhere going forward. More strain on an aging power grid that no one wants to fund to upgrade. There are so many options for portable power these days. We have our wifi (no cell without it) plugged in to our Yeti, which we keep charged and have a solar panel for when it runs low.
Anthony Dods June 15, 2021 (9:36 pm)

Hi Tyler, unfortunately to say I do believe it is the cosmic weather changes that have been happening. That is based From what I’ve read and heard on various headlines and radio.But apparently we are in the beginning stages of an altering and shifting universe with all sorts of magnetic fields and a concoction various forms of energy.Unfortunately I don’t think moving will help. I’ve been getting dead zones on my Siriusxm alot lately In areas never before had a problem. That’s my thought anyhow.
- Thomas June 15, 2021 (10:09 pm)
  
  “Broken cross arm on pole” is obvious cover up. Cosmic forces are obviously to blame.

Rick June 15, 2021 (8:00 pm)

I would guess crows. They’re out in pretty big numbers right about now.

WSB June 15, 2021 (8:42 pm)

If it were a crow, they would have labeled it “bird/animal.” I’ll ask first thing tomorrow to find out what failed unless SCL discloses that tonight.
Crows June 15, 2021 (10:02 pm)

Rick is to blame, he’s been seen in the area.
- Fido June 15, 2021 (11:43 pm)
  
  So Rick is the name of the mailman? I keep telling him… Wait… I can’t believe it… There he is again!

East Coast Cynic June 16, 2021 (6:27 am)

Is this a constant problem in the northern neighborhoods/cities? Does Northgate, Shoreline, or Bitter Lake have as many outages as we do down south or are problems of aging and failing equipment specific to South King County? If this is unequal failure, our political class should deal with it—-I know, dreaming right?

WSB June 16, 2021 (9:51 am)

Yes, power outages happen all over the city. Obviously we only cover the ones that affect this area. And many don’t get coverage at all because many neighborhoods don’t have neighborhood news coverage. Checking Twitter archives, for example, Capitol Hill, Magnolia, and Northgate had outages in recent weeks – and those are just the ones big enough for SCL to tweet about; they don’t usually tweet unless a four-digit customer total is affected. – TR
- East Coast Cynic June 16, 2021 (4:26 pm)
  
  Reading the Capitol Hill blog, City Light has done a lot of work in the area to update the power grid. I understand that light rail, and proximity to hospitals and educational institutions has factored into major work on their grid. Hopefully, our increasingly unreliable grid for southern and unincorporated king county will get work beyond what appear to be patch jobs.
  - Lola June 17, 2021 (9:22 am)
    
    East Coast Cynic, I am afraid we may never get our Power Grid fixed since they keep saying that WS is going to get Link Light Rail but it never happens. They like to keep taxing us over here in WS like the Car Tabs for the Monorail which never happened but they kept the money from the Two years that they collected it. Do we ever know what they spent that on? Lets hope they can get to the bottom of the Power Outages in WS.

Chris June 16, 2021 (4:19 pm)

It does seem like we are hearing about more of these – if only because of the instant media we have today. This wouldn’t have made the local television news or the Seattle Times “in the old days”. Unless you were directly affected by the power outage, you probably wouldn’t have known about it.

WSB June 16, 2021 (5:23 pm)

Those would have been really old days! We’ve been instant news for almost 15 years (and in fact the massive windstorm power outage of 2006 is what turned this from a personal project into a full-time news publication).

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