As Seattle City Light’s crews work to restore power to all customers affected by Saturday’s windstorm, they follow a set of guidelines for determining which job to work on next.
The utility’s priorities start with the transmission system, which carries large amounts of high-voltage electricity from power plants to City Light’s substations where the voltage is lowered for delivery to customers via the utility’s distribution system.
Within the distribution system, top priority is given to damage that threatens life safety, such as a sparking, energized wire that is downed at a busy intersection, followed by emergency services, including hospitals.
Next, the crews will focus their efforts on repairs that will bring the highest number of customers back. This starts with feeder lines that carry electricity from the substations and typically serve 3,000 to 3,500 customers. Lateral lines serving about 500 customers come next, then individual transformers with up to 10 customers and finally individual service lines from a transformer to a home or business.
For updates on City Light’s restoration work, visit our outage map. If you experience an outage, report it at (206) 684-3000.
Harry Murphy says
The time has come for the City of Seattle to partner with home/property owners and the State, to bury the remaining exposed power lines. This is the 21-Century, to have vital utilities susceptible to wind and falling tree damage is ludicrous.
David Trenchard says
Totally agree on the buried utilities. Seems like a no brainer with the consistent wind related outages. I’d help pay for it to be done in my area (Shoreline).
G. Adams says
Wouldn’t underground services be more difficult/expensive to repair if needed? Burying electrical service seems cost prohibitive compared to costs of hazard tree removal.
Nota Priority says
You forgot to mention how you constantly promise restoration times just to change them over and over when your crew can’t do the job or just doesn’t want to.
William says
30hrs without power and no one has even bothered to look at the small branch across the line leaving 100’s in my neighborhood in the dark. Unbelievably slow response!
thomses says
Estimates for when power might be restored are difficult when there is this much damage that requires more time to repair than expected. They are updated with the best available information at the time, but they are estimates.
thomses says
Excellent question.
Overhead and underground lines each have their advantages and disadvantages. Overhead equipment is less costly to install, requires less regular maintenance and when there is damage, it’s easier to find so you can make repairs. On the downside, it is more susceptible to wind/tree damage during storms.
Underground lines are better protected from wind storm damage. It costs about 10 times as much to install and requires more regular maintenance because the lines must be insulated to avoid grounding and short circuits. And when an underground cable fails, you can’t see where the problem is, so it takes longer to find the problem and make the repair.
Shauna says
The priorities were totally wrong! I called the hotline and it let me know that I was one of 7 people without power – however, i live in a 4 story apartment complex and we had no power for blocks around us. So, we were de-prioritized based on faulty information.
Steve says
I’ve lived in a neighbor with underground power lines for 12 years, and power failures unrelated to storms and wind have been relatively frequent. I once asked a City Light repairman who was working to restore our service why we had so many power outages, and was told that the underground cables and connections are not properly maintained or replaced prior to failure. Corrosion in underground wiring is a problem according to this engineer, and they seem to wait until something fails rather than replacing components on some regular schedule.
John Burch says
I thought the SCL Crews did an admirable job given the vast outages in the North End. I don’t think we have eperienced a storm like this in quite some time. I live in an area where outages are rare and at most 2 – 3 hours. This time we were without power for 24+ hours. I have a small generator to power the Refrigeratot & Freezer, and a few other things, and that’s all you really need if you have done any kind of Emergency Preporation.
If not; STOP complaining about SCL’s response.
thomses says
Corrosion for underground lines that were buried without conduit (as was the industry norm in the late 70s and early 80s) is a problem. In recent years we have made significant investments in cable injection to extend the life of underground cables and replacing others. Even so, there will always be a risk of cable failures because underground lines must be insulated to prevent grounding and that insulation does get old and cracked, or gets chewed on by an animal, etc.