The photo is courtesy of Deb Barker, who reports that crew is on scene fixing a water break:

Just talked with supervisor Oscar, who said that the main broke because it’s old. His emergency repair crew will have to shut off the water to repair the pipe tonight. He’s notifying businesses between Graham and Holly to find out when they close to be least disruptive. The crew will backfill and temp patch the hole tonight. They know it’s a bus route.

(Deb is president of the Morgan Community Association, which incidentally has its quarterly meeting tomorrow night – info and agenda here.)

Back in 2012, the city did a test run of every-other-week garbage pickup in a few neighborhoods including 200 households in Highland Park. Then in 2013-2014, it floated the idea of making the change citywide – but eventually scrapped the idea. Now the concept is up for discussion again. Seattle Public Utilities is on the agenda of the City Council’s Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, Arts Committee – chaired by District 1 Councilmember Lisa Herbold – tomorrow to revisit the idea. No formal proposal, just a briefing and discussion looking back at the pilot, including this slide deck:

Though some things have changed in the years since the pilot – required food-scrap composting, for example, has reduced odor-producing trash – the presentation still concludes it’s not time, yet, for a new proposal to change trash pickup to every other week. However, the city “could consider providing
voluntary, subscription EOW garbage collection,” SPU suggests. The meeting featuring the discussion is set for 9:30 am tomorrow (Tuesday, July 9th) at City Hall, streamed via Seattle Channel.

9 PM: Thanks for the tips. What was described as a boom and a flash is apparently the result of another bird/power line conflict, this time north of Lincoln Park. The Seattle City Light map shows one customer out – though it’s not clear whether that’s a single residence or an entire multifamily building – along Lincoln Park Way.

9:08 PM: The map just updated to 22 customers affected.

10:24 PM: Thanks to Diana for the tip. She says a loud boom preceded a power outage that the Seattle City Light map says is affecting 43 customers just southwest of California/Fauntleroy. The utility blames the outage on “bird/animal” – we’ve had several of those lately.

2:15 AM: The map shows the outage is over.

9:15 PM: Thanks to Robert for the tip: 119 customers are out of electricity in Upper Alki. Robert says a “loud bang” preceded the outage. No cause listed yet. Checking the SCL outage map, we also note a 19-customer outage in The Junction blamed on “equipment failure.”

11:23 PM: Map indicates the Alki-area outage has been resolved.

Thanks to Alan for the tip: Looks like another crow-vs.-transformer power outage, this time centered in the 3800 block of 41st SW. The Seattle City Light map started off showing just one customer but is now up to nine. If you’re out but beyond what’s shown on the map, call to be sure they know (206-684-3000)!

Thanks to Maureen for word of a power outage that has at least half a dozen homes without electricity along 59th SW, south of Admiral Way, in Upper Alki. She says a crow is believed to be to blame, and lost its life in the process – “the outage started with a loud bang,” and the crow was found under the pole. City Light is on the scene and told Maureen it’ll likely take two hours or so to reconnect everybody.

SDOT sends this reminder about a water shutoff tonight, as noted earlier in the most-recent update on the Avalon/35th project:

In coordination with our work to replace the water main on 35th Ave SW, SPU will complete their first water shutoff tonight to cut the water main and install a temporary bypass in preparation for connecting the new water main. The shutoff will take place from 9 PM to 6 AM for neighbors living on 35th Ave SW and 36th Ave SW from SW Snoqualmie St to SW Avalon Way.

If your water is scheduled to be shut off, you should have already received a door hanger/ flyer from SPU.

Crews will use a temporary noise permit to complete this work and you can expect this work to be noisy as SPU crews cut and replace pipes throughout the course of the evening. SPU is doing this work at night to minimize the impacts of the water shut off.

If you have questions about this water shutoff, please contact SPU’s Utility Service Team at 206-684-5800.

That’s part of a notice a resident “south of Solstice Park” shared with us on Wednesday. The notice didn’t go into details about the reason for the “planned outage” so we asked Seattle City Light today. SCL’s Scott Thomsen explained that as the utility continues inspecting poles for potential replacement, several in that area have “moved to the top of the list” and will be replaced on Saturday. He believed the outage would affect “dozens” of customers, all of whom should have been notified directly already.

SIDE NOTE – WHAT IF YOU SEE A PROBLEM POLE? This gives us the opportunity to share informatioon we obtained recently after another reader emailed wondering how to report a leaning pole in his neighborhood. Neither we nor the reader could find the answer on SCL’s website; the reader didn’t think the pole was in imminent danger of falling, so he contacted SCL the next weekday morning. He told us the utility sent out a crew, with a replacement pole installed shortly thereafter. Meantime, we asked SCL’s Julie Moore how to report a pole problem. Her reply:

Throughout the city of Seattle and the utility’s suburban franchise cities, Seattle City Light has a network of more than 90,000 utility poles. These utility poles carry power lines as well as communication lines for other entities (e.g., phone, broadband, and fire department signals). The services carried on the poles vary from neighborhood to neighborhood and street to street. Occasionally, utility pole replacements are necessitated by a variety of reasons, including infrastructure upgrades to add space for new equipment and structural instability from old age, weather, wildlife, and even vehicle-pole collisions.

If you see a utility pole that you believe may potentially be structurally unsound, it can be reported in several ways:

*Call 206-684-3000
*Submit an online service request
*Report through Find It, Fix It mobile app

To assist our crews with finding the correct pole, please include the pole number, which is on a yellow and black tag about six feet up the pole.

If you believe it is an emergency (e.g., the pole has fallen, could fall imminently, or lines are down), call 911.

Last night’s low was into the 40s. No heat at Kristin‘s house in West Seattle – and she wanted to be sure what happened to her doesn’t happen to you.

Kristin and her family weren’t home when Puget Sound Energy came by for some gas-meter maintenance on Tuesday. The maintenance led to their gas service being shut off – and left off – and they had to make an appointment to get it turned back on.

What she learned, and what we confirmed when checking on this with PSE, is that the date/time was announced by postal mail – but the utility does not require confirmation. If they don’t hear from you, they’ll just assume that date/time is OK with you. And if no one’s home, instead of coming back some other time or rescheduling, they’ll do the work anyway, and leave you to work out the logistics of getting the gas turned back on.

PSE spokesperson Janet Kim told us that you generally should be able to get a crew to come do that same-day. But Kristin didn’t get a call back until this morning – saying that someone would be by sometime before midnight. (We’re waiting to hear back if and when they showed up.)

By the way, while researching this, we learned something we hadn’t heard, despite being PSE gas customers ourselves – like Seattle City Light, PSE is switching to “smart meters.” The map on their website says West Seattle changes will be made this year. But PSE’s Kim says that hasn’t started yet, so that’s not what was done at Kristin’s house.

4:26 PM: Thanks for the tips. A big power outage that’s mostly to the south has affected a few West Seattle pockets – such as Arrowhead Gardens. Here’s the outage map. City Light says via Twitter that a crash on East Marginal Way is to blame. Updates to come.

4:38 PM: The crash in question is on East Marginal Way in Tukwila [map], according to the Seattle Fire log – while it’s not in city limits, they’ve sent mutual aid. We’ve added a screen grab of much of the outage area (which stretches further into Burien beyond what’s shown – they’ve even closed City Hall early for the day as a result). In the full affected area, more than 16,000 homes and businesses are without power.

5:13 PM: Take note that the outage situation is causing traffic effects in a variety of places. For one, East Marginal is closed south of the South Park Bridge, as Trickycoolj points out in comments – Tukwila Police have tweeted this photo and explained that multiple power poles have been taken out:

We’re currently on Highway 516 westbound just east of Burien, about to exit to northbound 509, and it’s backed up – likely because much of Burien is caught up in the outage. Remember that a dark signal means all-way stop.

5:57 PM: Almost everyone’s back on – all but 300+.

6:16 PM: Back at the original outage site:

TV coverage shows multiple poles fell.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: The road has reopened, according to Tukwila Police, though: “Several intersections will be without power for at least several days. Four-way stop signs are in place.”

After seeing an online discussion about trash-can changes in Beacon Hill – some customers getting a larger can without increased capacity – Scott wondered if the same swapout is going to happen here. So we checked with Seattle Public Utilities spokesperson Sabrina Register, who says yes, in fact, it is, and the new cans/carts either are about to start arriving or already have. If you have a 20-gallon solid-waste container, Waste Management wlll replace it with a new one that has, Register explains, “the same dimensions as the existing Rehrig-brand 32g-service garbage cart, but will have a tan-color insert (screwed in) that reduces the cart’s capacity to 20-gallons.The inserts are not designed to be removed or added (again, screwed in/permanent). The new carts are better for drivers and customers because they roll and have attached lids.” This shouldn’t be a surprise; Register says affected customers should have received postcards (like this one) that were sent in late January.

P.S. Register also reminded us that, unrelated to this, SPU’s garbage rates are going up next month. This chart shows the change.