FOLLOWUP: Here’s why 2,000+ City Light customers were without power in West Seattle at times Friday/Saturday

That’s an image from the peak of the power problems we covered here Friday/Saturday. Today as promised we followed up with Seattle City Light; spokesperson Julie Moore just responded with this explanation:

On Friday, Aug. 13, we actually experienced two separate events that impacted customers in the same area of West Seattle. The first one was an equipment failure in the underground system that initially impacted ~200 customers. We restored power to some Friday evening, but the final 59 were still out until mid-day on Saturday. As you know, underground outages can sometimes take longer to identify the location of the failure and also to make the necessary repairs.

The second, larger outage impacting ~2,000 customers, occurred in an overhead system. During a regularly scheduled maintenance job, a piece of electrical equipment failed and resulted in an overhead pulling rope dropping down on to our primary voltage electrical system, causing the lines to fault. The crew first made the area safe for the general public. A clearance – when we intentionally cut power to a particular area – was needed for the electrical workers to safely remove the pulling rope from the primary lines and then we were able to restore the system to its normal configuration.

3 Replies to "FOLLOWUP: Here's why 2,000+ City Light customers were without power in West Seattle at times Friday/Saturday"

  • Colonel Mustard's Wrench August 16, 2021 (5:25 pm)

    When will SCL find a solution to their underground vaults that routinely overheat during the hottest parts of summer ?
    These vault failures are usually preventable.

  • PDiddy August 17, 2021 (9:21 pm)

    Our electrical grid in Seattle compared to major cities in Europe is laughable. Seriously we still have power lines? It should all be underground and not in the old system but modern accessible ones. Power grids have come a long way and SCL need to really embrace getting modern. Imagine how beautiful streets could be without power poles…

  • East Coast Cynic August 18, 2021 (6:10 am)

    Just got back power a minute ago.  Roxhill/Westwood village.   What you said pdiddy:/

Sorry, comment time is over.