Harbor Island power outage — blamed on a seagull

| Utilities | West Seattle news

Other news is starting to break, just as West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day wraps up. Just got word from Seattle City Light that more than 500 customers on Harbor Island are without power, because of a seagull hitting a power line. Here’s the official news release from City Light’s Mike Eagan:

About 552 City Light customers on Harbor Island and along Alaska Way South lost power about 1:15 p.m. today. Most are expected to have power restored by 4 p.m.; the remainder within another three hours.

The outage was caused by a seagull hitting a transmission line. A City Light crew has been called in from home to replace a section of the line.

The Todd Shipyard was among those who lost power, as well as portions of Stevedoring Services of America.

7:20 PM UPDATE: According to the most recent update from City Light, e-mailed just under an hour ago, everyone has their power back except the site where the gull-vs.-line actually happened, the Burlington Northern Railroad yard; about that, Eagan writes, “A City Light repair crew was called in from home to replace the section of line and City Light expects power to be restored to Burlington Northern by 8:00 p.m.”

chas redmond May 9, 2009 (3:28 pm)

That explains the truly “flash” interruption which occurred with my power at exactly that same time – you’d never notice it except I have a lot of digital stuff running which notices things like fractions-of-a-second power interruptions – I thought, “what the heck? Clear sky – check; no wind – check;” I figured City Light was switching something and there was a nano-second glitch. Another reason to want to be “off the grid.”

Tom May 9, 2009 (7:12 pm)

When they say “552 customers” what does that mean? Are there residences on HI? I thought it was strictly port property…

WSB May 9, 2009 (7:20 pm)

An individual customer is a home OR business — basically, 552 places that get City Light bills. That’s why us news types have to be careful when announcements like this come in, not to turn “552 customers” into “552 people” … TR

JanS May 9, 2009 (8:33 pm)

and how’s the seagull?

Tom May 9, 2009 (9:34 pm)

Aah, OK, so 552 electrical meters.

WSB May 9, 2009 (9:53 pm)

Jan, I am guessing the Harbor Island crows had a lovely grilled fowl meal. If the poor thing didn’t instantaneously near-vaporize into ash. Although (and I will ask the City Light guys this next week) I am curious how fragile some part of a “transmission line” happens to be, that a seagull collision can throw it out of service? Always something new to learn …

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