Finally got some official information about a power outage in the Westwood Village vicinity. We got a text about a “spotty” outage in a few places at the center earlier tonight – went over and looked around, didn’t see any obvious evidence of an outage. Seattle City Light didn’t have anything on its outage line. But now they’ve sent a short tweet saying 148 customers – businesses and residences – are affected by the outage, and they may not have the power back till 3 am. In a comment on this morning’s holiday supermarket hours story, “Voodoo” reports that QFC has had some effects – including the ice-cream case.
Four weeks ago, we wrote aboutComcast‘s latest TV changes in West Seattle, including a plan to add HD channels on November 24th. The other night, “bl@ster” added a comment to that story wondering if that date – tomorrow – was still on. We checked with Comcast’s Shauna Causey (a West Seattleite), and she says the engineers confirmed to her that the channels should be up and running in WS by 9 am tomorrow. “If they have an HD TV, HD set-top box and a package that includes HD channels, they’ll automatically get the channels,” she adds. (What they are, was detailed here.)
Got a note about an outage in Gatewood that’s been under way since about 8 this morning. Just checked with Seattle City Light‘s on-call media rep – no estimate yet when it’ll be fixed; they say it’s affecting about 53 customers, in the northern Gatewood Hill residential area east of the Morgan Junction business area so far as we can tell from the boundaries.
Followup on last night’s story – according to a City Council news release we just received, councilmembers approved the highest proposed Seattle City Light rate hike under consideration – nearly 14 percent over 2 years. Read on for their announcement and explanation (followed by Councilmember Bruce Harrell‘s statement – added 11:32 am – saying he thought a smaller increase would have sufficed):Read More
At last night’s Junction Neighborhood Organization meeting, president Erica Karlovits told WSB she’d heard from the office of City Councilmember Bruce Harrell – who leads the Energy and Technology Committee — saying the proposed Seattle City Light rate hike will be discussed at the Budget Committee meeting tomorrow morning. She says that if you’ve got anything to say about a possible rate hike, you’re urged to get your comments to Harrell ASAP: bruce.harrell@seattle.gov. That’s echoed by Patti Mullen of the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce, who passed along this link to Harrell’s website, where he spells out the possibilities – anywhere from 7 percent to almost 14 percent, under a variety of scenarios. (He discussed rate-hike scenarios at a WS Chamber brownbag in July, where we took the photo at left.) Mullen points out that it’s important for businesses to pay attention to this as well as residential ratepayers: “Local businesses are barely able to claim ‘recovery’ mode at present, and this level of increase could be devastating to West Seattle ’s small business community.” She attended a City Hall discussion yesterday and heard a variety of viewpoints, including businesses saying they’d like to see City Light’s strategic plan first, and workers saying the utility needs money to pay for infrastructure upgrades.
Seattle City Light has had to warn about this kind of scam before, and now they’re issuing a new alert: Telephone scammers “appear to be targeting customers with Asian surnames,” claiming to be utility-bill collectors and demanding credit-card numbers. Read on for the full warning:Read More
Three months ago, Comcast‘s Shauna Causey (a West Seattleite) sent word of upgrades on the way – here’s the story we published then. She just e-mailed word that they’re taking effect starting today – “In West Seattle: Comcast is converting channels 30 and above to a digital format today. We’re launching the HD channels in West Seattle on Nov. 24.” It’s part of what Comcast calls “The World of More,” explained here.
No, that’s not a rerun of the video featured here after the media tour of Beacon Hill Reservoir last year – it’s a brand-new look at the work to cover (underground) West Seattle Reservoir adjacent to Westcrest Park (map). When it’s done next year and ready to hold water, the man who had the idea to cover the reservoirs won’t be mayor any more – so he came out today for a firsthand look at part of his legacy. During the tour, we asked Mayor Nickels, now that much of the reservoir-covering work he started is done at several sites around the city, what he thinks about the decision to change from “floating covers” that originally were in the works:
The city decided to cover half of the original reservoir site (the southern half), and leave the other half as open space. The other city reservoir in West Seattle has been covered – Myrtle; it’s much smaller, but the project has taken longer because the waterproofing needed to be replaced (here’s the story we broke three months ago, and our most recent followup) – lessons learned from that will ensure that the same part of the process does not encounter the same problem here. Meantime, last time we visited the Westcrest site, in May, the uncovered half looked like this:
Now it’s been hydroseeded, and Canada geese have taken up residence on the lush grass – take a look at the difference. Bill Duyungan from Seattle Public Utilities is the voice you hear in this clip talking about it:
The grass-covered side also has special drainage features – it’s something of a swale, SPU managers explained. Though the undergrounding structure work is almost done, the entire project is more like half complete. The project manager from Seattle Public Utilities, Stephanie Murphy, gave a quick rundown on the numbers –30 million gallons capacity for the covered reservoir, with the covering work to be complete by year’s end (more concrete will be poured tomorrow; the pour’s been under way intermittently since March) and filling scheduled for next summer. She was asked how it’ll be connected with the existing park:
We also got a look at the workings inside – including the electrical vault, with pumps and earthquake protection equipment – as explained when we toured the site in May, it’s got a special setup to make sure the reservoir stays half full even if a seismic event causes it to lose some water. The vault is accessible from a set of stairs leading down from part of the north edge of the cover. Here’s part of what’s inside:
The completion of the reservoir will create 21 new acres of park space that will connect to the existing Westcrest Park; $3 million from the Parks and Green Spaces Levy passed last year will be used to design and build the park’s features – the community-involvement process hasn’t officially begun yet, but the Highland Park Action Committee will be closely involved – its next meeting is a week from tonight, fourth Wednesday of the month (7 pm, Highland Park Improvement Club building). As for the mayor – as much fun as it must be to come out and have a look at part of your legacy, a structure that will be in place for decades, he has an interesting rest of the week ahead; we asked what’s ahead for him in the next few days, and he mentioned that on Sunday, he plays host to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
(2008 photo from Nancy in North Delridge, showing a drain in need of clearing)
With our sunbreak/downpour/breeze/repeat cycle of weather today, it’s the perfect public-service announcement of sorts: The city just sent out a reminder about keeping storm drains clear, and a project in which you can participate to make sure you have what you need to do it:
Fall has arrived and the rainy season is upon us … and Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) needs your help preventing flooding by keeping neighborhood street drains clear of debris.
Fall Clean is a part of SPU’s popular Adopt-A-Drain program, in which volunteers help keep storm drains free of debris. During the coming months, a combination of changing weather and falling leaves creates a perfect opportunity for flooding. Unfortunately, the utilities’ full-time drainage crews cannot keep up with all of the thousands of storm drains that need extra maintenance this time of year.
We’ll lend you free cleanup supplies – rakes, bags, gloves, shovels, brooms and dustpans. Pick them up at the following times and locations:
* October 24 and 31 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at Seattle Public Utilities’ warehouse at 3633 East Marginal Way South.
* October 28 and 29 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Seattle Municipal Tower between Columbia Street and Cherry Street on 6th Avenue in downtown Seattle.
Please call or e-mail us in advance at (206) 233-7187 or adoptadrain@seattle.gov to reserve your supplies.
Update on one effect of last night’s up-to-3-hours West Seattle power outage (WSB as-it-happened coverage here) – a spill at the Lowman Beach pump station, where WSB contributing journalist Christopher Boffoli took that photo last night (the light in the background was from a county truck at the pump station). This news release is just in from King County:
A power failure in West Seattle last night knocked out electricity at King County’s Murray Avenue Pump Station, causing a small sewage overflow near Lowman Beach Park.
County employees responded quickly Wednesday night and installed a portable generator to provide back up power during the outage. Crews stopped the overflow within 30 minutes.
It’s estimated that about 65,000 gallons of wastewater was discharged through the pump station’s emergency outfall into Puget Sound.
County staff took water quality samples and notified health and regulatory agencies about the overflow.
Utility power was back online within two hours and the facility is again operating normally.
We have followup questions out to Seattle City Light regarding the cause of the “underground cable failure” blamed for last night’s outage, which affected almost 2,800 homes and businesses at its peak.
(video added 8:31 pm – Fauntleroy/California intersection just before power returned) FIRST REPORT at 6:46 PM: Power just went out here at WSB HQ in Upper Fauntleroy. Checking to find out the extent of the outage. So far: SW Austin on the north. On the south, we drove 35th and it came back on by the time we got to SW Henderson. Just called City Light, this isn’t on their outage hotline yet – calling the media number next. Via Twitter, we have a couple reports that Alki had a flicker but no outage. Meantime, one person in comments reports having trouble reporting this via the city outage number – we had the same problem.
7:05 PM UPDATE: Still no record of this on City Light’s line. This definitely seems to be a “south West Seattle” situation. Right now, we’re checking the Lincoln Park area – the 76 station and the tennis courts are out but the ferry dock has the power – south of the tennis courts, there’s power. Looks like the lights are on at The Kenney. In comments, Josh says he reached someone at SCL who says this is affecting 3,000 homes/businesses.
7:11 PM UPDATE: From the Seattle City Light media line – 2,756 “customers” (homes/businesses) without power, boundaries described as Findlay, Henderson, 34th, Puget Sound, no cause known yet, “estimated time of restoration” unknown. Co-publisher Patrick is on the road checking key spots in the area – he says the California/Fauntleroy light is out and businesses around that intersection appear to be out as well, at least on the Zeeks Pizza/Starbucks-Subway/Thriftway corners – he’s going into Thriftway shortly to check on the situation there. (update) They’re open for business, with the help of generators – here’s a photo:
Going east on Morgan from the Thriftway, Patrick reports that the outage is spotty – a few spots out, a few spots on. City Light’s online note is here (no info beyond what we have already reported). Again, The Junction and other points north, NOT affected by all accounts – and to the south, one commenter says Endolyne Joe’s (WSB sponsor) and that section of Fauntleroy has power – so if you’re looking to go out to dinner, head in those directions. We’re heading out to check on Westwood Village. From Facebook, Lindsey offers words of warning and advice:
There’s power on raymond and fauntleroy. Stay away from 35th and morgan traffic light !! People’s tempers are getting ugly. People keep driving and not stopping on 35th ouch almost saw a accident
7:43 PM UPDATE: Westwood Village has its power on, no problem. Again, as Lindsey’s note above indicates, driving is a big problem right now, with major lights out of power including California/Fauntleroy, 35th/Morgan, 35th/Thistle. (added 9:22 pm, Christopher Boffoli‘s photo of Calif/Fauntleroy during the outage)
Still no updates so far on how long this will last or what caused it. It’s dark along Fauntleroy from Myrtle to California. Continuing reports of where the power is ON – Delridge and Highland Park report in as OK – so this does not seem to extend much past 35th.
7:53 PM UPDATE: Power just came back on to California/Fauntleroy intersection and surrounding businesses, per co-publisher Patrick. Not back on up here (California/Thistle, mile south) yet. (minutes later) He’s checking south now – the outage starts again at SW Austin and continues to about SW Trenton, again with irregular boundaries in some spots. (Sue via Facebook says she’s at 41st and Holly, where one side of the street is out, the other on!)
8:01 PM UPDATE: WSB contributing journalist Christopher Boffoli has joined the outage-coverage team – he says Zeeks in Morgan Junction will reopen but since they had sent half their staff home, they will NOT be delivering for the rest of the night. He also just verified, Abbondanza in Morgan Junction has reopened. McDonald’s is open but Subway will remain closed for the night. (Added 9:09 pm, Christopher’s photo of Feedback Lounge[WSB sponsor], serving by candlelight before the power returned:)
8:08 PM UPDATE: Our power just returned at California/Thistle. It’s still out at the north Lincoln Park 76 station and nearby tennis courts, plus heading down the hill to Lowman Beach from there.
8:21 PM UPDATE: At Lowman Beach, Christopher reports a crew from King County has brought portable power to make sure the pump station there keeps running. (He took this photo, added at 9 pm:)
Just checked City Light’s media line again, still no new updates on the cause (or when the outage will be fully restored).
8:30 PM UPDATE:In comments, Morgan Community Association president Deb Barker says she has word from her mom at The Kenney that it’s operating on reduced power. Also, a comment from Gatewood says that while the power’s back, Comcast service isn’t fully restored for them (ours up the hill to the south is, fwiw). Meantime, we’re adding a video clip atop this story, from when the power went back on while we were rolling video on the then-dark intersection at California/Fauntleroy (note the flashing traffic lights at the end of the clip).
9:04 PM UPDATE: Still have scattered reports of powerlessness – DrD in comments says 6900 block of California; Andrea via Facebook says upper Lowman Beach.
9:24 PM UPDATE: Still out at the north Lincoln Park pocket too, as Karinotes in comments; co-publisher Patrick is back out roaming and spotted a City Light crew working on a pole across from the 76 station there.
9:35 PM UPDATE: Now that area is back, and upper Lowman Beach appears to be too, so unofficially it looks like the outage is ALL over – let us know if you are an exception. Meantime, Christopher put together a short clip including Morgan Junction during the outage, Lowman Beach pump truck, and Morgan Junction post-power-back:
Last night at The Hall at Fauntleroy, we checked in on the second of two West Seattle open houses regarding the King County Wastewater Treatment decisions-to-be-made about how to handle “combined sewer overflows,” which happen (on average) at least four times a year, a million gallons of stormwater/untreated sewage into Puget Sound each time, from the Murray (Lowman Beach) and Barton (by Fauntleroy dock) spots. Talked with KCWT’s Martha Tuttle for two points of clarification: (1) The CSO plans are separate from the still-in-the-works plans to upgrade the underground pump stations at Murray and Barton. (The latter, she says, is on track for construction in 2011; Murray will be sometime “later” – Tuttle points out there’s already been a fair amount of upgrading at that site.) (2) Look for another round of meetings in late January where KCWT will return with the proposed “alternatives” (from the four general types described in our report on the Wednesday night meeting); then decisions will be made in May. She says that despite King County budget woes, these projects ARE in the budget – the overflows are a situation the county is required by law to fix. (P.S. Next time there’s a storm – check out the real-time CSO info for West Seattle on this county page.)
SOUTHWEST DISTRICT COUNCIL: Tonight’s agenda includes Dante Taylor fromSDOT briefing the group on the proposed changes in Junction parking. The map you see above is the official version of the one that was shown in rough draft to the recent Parking Project Committee meeting (WSB coverage here); it’ll be on a mailer going out to area homes/businesses shortly. Also on the agenda for tonight’s meeting: 7 pm, board room at South Seattle Community College (WSB sponsor).
NORTH DELRIDGE NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL: 6:30 tonight, Delridge Library.
COMBINED SEWER OVERFLOWS – AND WHAT THAT MEANS TO LOCAL BEACHES: Tonight and tomorrow night, King County Wastewater Treatment Division comes to West Seattle to talk about two projects involving pump stations and “combined sewer overflows” — what happens when the system gets overloaded – which affects Puget Sound and local beaches more than you might realize. Tonight’s meeting looks at the “Murray basin” – related to the underground pump station at Lowman Beach north of Lincoln Park. It’s at 6:30 pm at The Kenney; background information here. Tomorrow night, it’s the “Barton basin,” related to the underground pump station next to the Fauntleroy ferry dock – that meeting’s at 6:30 pm, The Hall at Fauntleroy; background info here.
If you haven’t already seen it on the WSB Events calendar – we just got a reminder from the city that this is coming up this weekend: The Seattle Solar Tour, with six stops in West Seattle, including trailblazing “hybrid coffee shop” Red Cup Espresso in The Junction. It’s a self-guided free tour, 10 am-4 pm this Saturday (Oct. 3) – all locations, West Seattle and the rest of the city – are listed here.
You’ll be looking at that scene along Alki for two more months, because the expected completion date for the 53rd Avenue Pump Station expansion project on Alki has moved back a few more weeks. Two recent notes asking us for updates led us to contact King County Wastewater Treatment spokesperson Martha Tuttle, who says they’re now expecting the project to wind up in early November, instead of the October date discussed when we published an update in late spring. She explained:
Although the construction is substantially complete, the new pump station must go through significant testing to be fully functional. … We will not be clearing away the barricades/signs/ materials until the pump station is fully operative, which is around the first of November. Sorry for that news. We know the walkers, joggers and bikers are really tired of our presence.
A month and a half after our reports (1st article here, followups here and here) on the $4 million problem with leaky waterproofing material atop the new covers at Myrtle and Beacon Hill Reservoirs, its replacement is in place, according toSeattle Public Utilities. We checked in after Chas Redmond sent the photo you see above, showing the hot-asphalt material that is being used instead of the material that turned out to have hundreds of leaks (with a long process ahead to determine the cause, who’s to blame, and who ultimately picks up the bill). SPU’s Elaine Yeung tells WSB, “The application of the new waterproofing system is complete at Myrtle. The next steps will be the acceptance testing. Then beginning the week of September 8th, the contractor plans to start installing the drain rock and soil. Hydro-seeding to establish grass is planned to occur later in September.” The now-underground reservoir has remained in service throughout this process, according to SPU, which also has stressed that the leaks in the original waterproofing material did not pose any health risk. Once the reservoir work is finally complete, the site will be turned over to theParks Department for development of a new park site (more info on that here; public design meetings wrapped up last year).
For anyone heading southbound from West Seattle: Thanks to Laura for the tip on a power outage in the White Center area. Seattle City Light‘s outage hotline lists two outages – one that could be described as White Center, affecting 4,000 homes/businesses, and another in Burien with about 3,000. The one in Burien is blamed on a fire, according to the hotline, but the other one is listed as “cause unknown.” More to come. 4:08 PM UPDATE: City Light’s latest news release now calls these one outage – here’s the full text:
A fire associated with a power outage in Burien and unincorporated King County has increased the number of customers affected by the outage to about 7,100 homes and businesses.
The fire is burning in a wooded utility right of way south of S 96th Street and west of Des Moines Memorial Drive. Power lines were reported on the ground in the area and at least one utility pole was burning.
Seattle City Light deenergized the power lines to allow firefighters to put out the blaze. City Light crews were dispatched to restore service once the fire was extinguished.
The cause of the outage was not immediately known. City Light expects to restore service to most of the affected customers by 5:30 p.m. by routing power around the damaged area. An estimate for full restoration of service will not be available until crews are able to inspect the damaged equipment.
The general boundaries of the outage are SW Barton Street on the North, SW 167th Street on the South, Glendale Way S on the East and Puget Sound on the West.
If that entire area is out – which is seldom the case with boundaries listed like this – that would include some of West Seattle. We’re off to check the area south of Barton, east of Puget Sound. 6:47 PM UPDATE:City Light says all but 200 of the affected homes/businesses have their power back.
Here’s followup information from the city on two things we’d inquired about: First, yesterday’s power outage in the Admiral area (thanks to Jamie for the photo above and for one of the first reports when it happened): Seattle City Light‘s Scott Thomsen says it was caused when a utility pole’s crossarm broke (that may explain the “loud noise” reported yesterday), and affected almost 200 homes and businesses (including Admiral Safeway and West Seattle PCC). Repairs were complete about three hours after the outage started just before 2. Now, to Beach Drive:
We took that photo a few days ago after receiving a note from a concerned neighbor who saw extensive vegetation removal at Weather Watch Park (map), which he described as “clearcutting,” wondering if it had been authorized and, if so, by whom. First we checked with Seattle Parks, which reminded us that Weather Watch Park is SDOTproperty since it’s a “street end.” Here’s the information we received from Marybeth Turner at SDOT today:
A contractor hired by SDOT cleared away invasive weeds and dead plants and removed litter. The only tree-related work was the removal of suckers from a sweetgum tree. This maintenance work at the street-end area was done at the request of neighbors. Although this turned out to be legitimate activity,we appreciate the vigilance of residents who report what might be illegal activity. For more information about the street end, residents may call Patti Quirk, SDOT Street Use office, (206) 684-8501.
Thanks to those who’ve sent notes about a power outage in the Admiral District. One report says it followed a “loud bang” – and Diana says that Admiral Safeway has been without power for about half an hour. Seattle City Light says that the outage is within these boundaries: Admiral to Hanford, 42nd to 50th, but they’re not sure how long it will take to fix. A tipster has just sent the photo you see above, showing crews with what he describes as a downed line, south of Lafayette Elementary. 2:52 PM UPDATE: The tipster says the crews on the scene just told him they’ll need about an hour to splice the line. (Early Monday note – Jamie says their power came back on around 5:30 pm. We’ll be checking with City Light today regarding the official cause and how many homes/businesses were involved.)
Separate incident but also involving City Light: Crews have been working on a utility pole hit in a crash this morning; SW Morgan has been closed a few blocks up the hill east of West Seattle Thriftway as a result. We just went back to check (and to take the photo shown above) and they tell us they should be done, and be able to reopen the road, within an hour or so. (Thanks to Dasi for the original report on this, and Tom for the update that the road was still closed.)
We didn’t see them on the job yet when we took that photo earlier this afternoon, but crews are expected back at Myrtle Reservoir (map) this week to resume pressure-washing to remove the leaky waterproofing “membrane” material (a problem first reported in this in-depth WSB report three weeks ago). A new update from Seattle Public Utilities says this will be done by Wednesday. The update also says the membrane removal is complete at Beacon Hill Reservoir, the other site with the leaky-waterproofing problem, and that the contractor will start “installing the new waterproofing system on the east half of the reservoir”; that work will be followed, according to SPU, by the waterproofing of Myrtle – which is much smaller than Beacon – and then the west half of Beacon. As SPU told us last month, the waterproofing they’ll use is a “hot asphalt” process. Once it’s done, it’ll be tested, then drain pipe and drain rock will be replaced, followed by topsoil and hydroseeding. SPU adds:
During the course of this work, either Myrtle or Beacon Reservoir may be taken out of service. Water service will not be impacted. Until the work is completed, the two reservoirs will remain fenced off.
The work is expected to be completed at the end of November. Myrtle Reservoir and the area over the Beacon Reservoir will be ready to be turned over to the Parks Department at that time. Construction of the Jefferson Park Expansion Project by Parks Department has already begun on the north end of the Beacon site.
As reported here July 24, the waterproofing re-do is expected to cost more than $4 million; the city has said it expects that ratepayers ultimately will not pick up the tab – though it hasn’t yet been determined who’s to blame for the leaks – and also has pointed out that the $150 million reservoir-covering program citywide is overall $15 million under budget. Meantime, the design for the future Myrtle Reservoir park can be seen here.
*Blue Angels update: The news release we quoted in last night’s story said #7 would be here at 9:30 today, but David DeSiga (who took the awesome photo we used in that story) says it actually landed before 9 am. So we should add the caveat, times approximate, which would go for tomorrow’s expected arrival of the other 6.
*Seattle City Light has issued its own set of heat-beating tips – with a focus on electricity, how not to overuse it, and what to do if you lose it. Read on:Read More
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