Thanks for all the tips on this: We don’t know yet if it’s related, but a widespread Comcast/Xfinity outage is reported – we’ve heard from affected customers from Alki to North Delridge to The Junction to Morgan Junction to South Delridge, so far.

9:44 AM: More than 200 customers in the West Seattle Junction have lost electricity – the Seattle City Light outage map shows it as multiple outages, but they all started within the past half-hour. Thanks to Amy Lee Derenthal at the Senior Center of West Seattle (which is affected) for first word. Updates to come.

10:11 AM: We’re told via text that a few businesses north of SW Oregon – Lady Di and Greentree – are among those affected. This by the way is exactly a week after another Junction outage affected hundreds, lasting five hours for some.

11:30 AM: The outage is now shown at 419 customers, and “equipment failure” is attributed as the cause.

3:37 PM: We checked in with City Light, which hasn’t much to say: “We have a Seattle City Light crew currently on-site investigating the outage right now. They are trying to determine the root cause for the outage.”

5:59 PM: An update from SCL: “The crew is investigating both overhead and underground lines. They are still trying to determine the cause for the outage. The crew plans to restore power in sections in an effort to isolate where the outage is located. Depending on how extensive the problem is, it may take the crew more time to fully restore service.”

8:05 PM: SCL says everyone was back on as of about 15 minutes ago. Still awaiting word on the cause.

8:24 PM: SCL spokesperson Jenny Levesque tells WSB, “The outage was due to a limiter failure; it serves to limit current on the pole. The crew had to do testing to isolate and repair the issue.”

8:21 AM: Thanks for the tip! Seattle City Light’s map shows power out since 5:30 am to 425 customers in The Junction. No cause listed yet; we are checking with SCL.

8:32 AM: Just drove through the area: One sign of outage, 42nd/Alaska signal is dark.

9:31 AM: The Senior Center of West Seattle is partially out.

10:44 AM: As noted by commenters and confirmed by the map, power’s back. Julie Moore of SCL tells WSB a crow apparently caused it.

10:11 AM: Thanks for the tips. 337 customers south of Fauntleroy are out of electricity again. The same area lost power for a day and a half back in May. It went out around 8:30 this morning and is again attributed to “equipment failure.” As we reported in June, the area is scheduled for major work to replace its underground cabling, but the project has been delayed until early next year.

3:04 PM: Still out. We’re checking with City Light about the repairs’ status.

4:41 PM: Here’s how she replied:

This is the same location as the extended outage back in May in terms of customers impacted, but the issue is in a different area of the underground system. Crews have found the issue and have begun digging to reach it and make repairs. We expect this work will go well into the evening, potentially longer, before complete resolution.

Also, as you may have noticed on the outage map, the number of impacted customers has dropped from 337 to 43. This is because we were able to reroute service in a way that restored as many customers as possible while keeping necessary areas deenergized to safely make repairs. Please be aware that once repairs are complete, it is necessary to temporarily deenergize the broader area again to switch power back to the normal configuration.

Those two maps – top one between the South and Delridge substations, second one between the Delridge and Duwamish substations – show the routes for a fiberoptic-cable project Seattle City Light just announced:

Seattle City Light crews plan to install new fiberoptic cables between several utility substations in the southwest Seattle area. This work is needed to provide reliable communications for City Light’s electrical substations and operations network.

Beginning in mid-July 2020, City Light crews will pull overhead cables along several routes between the utility’s Delridge, Duwamish and South substations. Crews will be working on several utility poles to complete this work.

Additional Details:

Customers can anticipate temporary parking, sidewalk and traffic restrictions during this project. —

Flaggers will assist with directing traffic through work zones.

During this project, City Light will have the opportunity to upgrade infrastructure and replace utility poles that are in poor condition. Additional poles may be installed as well.

Some noise is expected from construction activities.

Maintenance power outages are not expected. If outages are needed, customers will be notified in advance.

The project will require rolling slowdowns on State Route (SR) 99 and SR 509. Details about this phase of work, tentatively beginning in September, will be shared with customers once a construction schedule has been determined.

This project is anticipated to start in mid-July 2020. Construction will last approximately two to three months. Construction work hours are from Mondays to Fridays, 7 a.m.-5 p.m. and weekends from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Crews may be working outside these hours, as needed.

If you’re hearing construction-type noise – there’s a Seattle Public Utilities crew working on a water problem at California/Dawson, just south of The Junction. We haven’t heard from anyone whose water service has been affected, but did get a couple tips about the SPU crew (thank you).

Back on May 21-22, an underground-cable failure left hundreds of people south of Fauntleroy, mostly in the Brace Point area, without electricity for a day and a half. It wasn’t the first failure in the area. But it led to the question of whatever happened to a planned Seattle City Light project to fix the ongoing problems. We found some online documentation – such as the draft below, from early last year – which said the project was originally expected to start early this year.

Obviously, it didn’t. So we asked SCL about the project’s status. We got the reply today from spokesperson Julie Moore:

The Brace Point Cable Replacement Project is still active. It is in the project manual/specification preparation process for public work advertisement. The project was delayed during the project design development/SDOT permitting stage; that process took longer than originally expected. Construction is tentatively scheduled to start Q1 2021 and could last two years.

Brace Point property owners paid for the original underground project completed in the early 1970s (ordinance attached). As with such voluntary underground projects, the property owners pay for the initial installation and City Light is responsible for all maintenance, and in this case, the rebuild that should start next year.

A similar project in The Arroyos/south Arbor Heights has been under way for about two years.

Utility-pole replacements are of a bit more interest than usual ever since an old pole came down withuut warning in Morgan Junction two weeks ago. So we asked Seattle City Light about that delivery of poles on the east side of Hiawatha Community Center on Friday, after Rob Braby sent the photo. SCL’s Julie Moore just sent the info:

The poles are not for one job. The contractor will be replacing poles at multiple locations scattered around the vicinity. As a matter of efficiency, they simply delivered all the poles (actually, eight poles, I believe) at one time and left them on a public right-of-way in advance of work that will begin this week. Our pause in planned outages remains in place, so there will be no outages with this replacement work. The old poles will be tied to the new poles and we’ll return at a later time when we will take a temporary outage to transfer the equipment and remove the old pole.

12:12 PM: 34 hours and counting for that power outage we first mentioned Thursday morning. It started around 2:30 am Thursday with 160+ customers, and doubled before noon. Here’s the newest info from Seattle City Light‘s Julie Moore:

As I noted yesterday, it can take longer to find the issue in the underground system than with an overhead system. We’ve had crews onsite since the outage occurred and late yesterday morning we did locate the issue – a direct buried cable that went bad. Direct buried means just that – it is directly buried in the ground and not within conduit (this is an older system in this location; we no longer install systems in this manner). Unfortunately, the bad cable is also buried 8 feet under the road, which makes it more difficult to access.

The number of customers impacted increased from 165 to 337 because we needed to expand the outage to safely make the repairs.

The crews just tested the initial repairs and the fix is not fully complete. We have to do some more investigation of the cable. Crews will continue until restoration is complete.

8:50 PM: Liz commented about 45 minutes ago that she had power back; the City Light map shows the entire outage is now over. (If you’re still out, be sure to call SCL!)

9:58 AM: Thanks to Jessica for the tip. 165 homes in the Brace Point area south of Fauntleroy are still out of power, after losing it in the middle of the night. We are checking with Seattle City Light about the cause. Xfinity service is also out in some if not all of the area, according to a tip from Nathan.

10:53 AM: SCL spokesperson Julie Moore tells WSB, “Crews are still investigating where the fault occurred. The neighborhood is fed through a underground residential distribution system, so crews are investigating each vault to see where the damage occurred and so they can identify the issue and make the repairs. This takes a bit more time than it does for an overhead system where it’s easier to pinpoint where damages occur along the power line or utility pole.”

12:14 PM: The SCL map now shows 337 customers out. (Thanks to Nathan for the alert on that.)

10:55 PM: Not fixed yet. Thanks to Hadlie for the photo (posted in comments) of SCL on scene. We’ll be following up again tomorrow.

10:56 WM: 12 hours later, still out – see comments for what neighbors are hearing.

12:13 PM FRIDAY: We’ve published a separate update.

10:48 AM: Thanks for the tips. Seattle City Light is investigating an outage in the area shown on the map screengrab. 18 customers are affected, according to the SCL map, and have been without power for a bit over an hour.

11:54 AM: Outage over, reports Marc, who also sent that photo of a City Light truck wrapping up restoration work.