White Center Now: The blog about White Center

No official alerts, but the wind has kicked up here in the early-morning hours, and the Seattle City Light outage map shows 14 customers in Greenbridge have lost power, near 8th/98th.

That’s a screengrab from the Seattle City Light map showing a power outage that started when that huge blast of wind roared through around 4:30 pm. The outage stretches from east West Seattle down into part of White Center and to South Park. May take a while for it to get fixed, as 26,000+ residences and businesses are without power throughout City Light’s service area – including a big outage south of here, in Burien.

3:01 PM: Much of White Center is without power in an outage affecting more than 11,000 Seattle City Light customers, from southeast West Seattle east to South Park and south into Burien. No word yet on the cause. Updates to come. (Remember that intersections where traffic signals have gone dark are all-way stops.)

4:13 PM: Now down to just under 5,000. White Center is one of the areas where it’s back on. No word yet on the cause.

5:09 PM: Under 3,000 still out.

8:33 PM: Down to under 500, mostly in the Boulevard Park area. The exact cause hasn’t been disclosed yet – “equipment” problem of some kind, SCL says.

12:30 PM MONDAY: We followed up today with SCL spokesperson Jenn Strang, who says, “The exact cause of (this) outage in still under investigation but there is a possibility that it was caused by a bird. The resulting fault caused two lines to wrap together, resulting in the larger impact of the outage.”

1:04 PM: Big power outage affecting parts of White Center as well as South Park and West Seattle – more than 14,000 customers, according to Seattle City Light. Under investigation is a report that this might have been caused by a tree being cut and falling onto wires in central Delridge.

2:15 PM: About a third of the originally affected customers are back on, including South Park and parts of West Seattle. SCL has in the meantime confirmed that a tree is to blame, and says it took out “two feeders,” which is why this was such a large outage.

2:21 PM: And as we typed that, most of the rest of the outage zone was restored – now down to fewer than 400 customers.

1:06 PM: Thanks for the tips. A power outage is affecting much of downtown White Center right now – the Seattle City Light map, shown above, says 268 customers are out. No official word on the cause, but we note a crash was reported around 16th/102nd at the same time this started, so we’re off to check.

1:38 PM: Apparently that was unrelated (and cleared before we arrived). The SCL map now attribute the outage to “balloon.” Meantime, businesses on 16th appear to have power.

The photos are from a water-main break in White Center, sent by Tom, who told us via email: “We had a water main break … right in front of Mount View Elementary. All of 12th north of the school down to 106th was flooded. I think that the water was also flowing down to Coronado Springs but I never had a chance to see how bad it was down there. Most of us on 12th were pretty busy trying to keep the water out of our houses to limited success. Crews are tearing up the street now to repair and all of us have had our water shut off.”

The SPU water-outage map says it started just before 6 pm.

The break is blamed for trouble as far north as West Seattle’s Highland Park neighborhood, where residents are reporting brown water as a result.

48 customers on both sides of the city-limit line are out of power in White Center/South Delridge. The Seattle City Light map says it started around 7:42 am and attributes it to “equipment failure.”

If you’re planning to travel on 509 and/or 99 early Friday, be aware of this alert from Seattle City Light:

Seattle City Light crews will be replacing overhead fiberoptic cables over State Route (SR) 99 and 509. The reliability work will result in traffic impacts on Aug. 27.

To complete this work safely, Washington State Patrol troopers and construction crews must intermittently conduct rolling slowdowns of traffic in both directions of SR 99 and 509 to ensure safe work operations and passage for motorists. Traffic will be intercepted and escorted at slow speeds up to 15 minutes as crews pull overhead cables across the freeways. Traffic will return to normal speeds once vehicles pass the work area.

Rolling slowdowns will occur from 12:01 a.m. to 4 a.m. on Friday, August 27. Construction will impact vehicle traffic on SR 99 and 509 in the following areas:

State Route 99

Northbound: South 116th Way/Tukwila International Boulevard to South 96th Street
Southbound: South Kenyon Street to South 100th Street

State Route 509

Northbound: South 96th Street to South 128th Street
Southbound: South Kenyon Street to South 106th Street

Side note: This is the kind of work that went awry in the early morning hours of August 18th, leading to a major power outage and highway closure.

That’s the map for a big Seattle City Light outage that started around 3 am for more than 8,000 homes/businesses in White Center and elsewhere in North Highline as well as parts of West Seattle and Burien. No word from SCL on the cause, yet.

2:29 PM: Second big power outage this week – this time with about 5,700 homes and businesses affected, from Burien northward to southeast West Seattle, including parts of North Highline, as you can see above on the screengrab from the Seattle City Light map. This started around 1:10 pm; no word yet on the cause.

3:20 PM: Via Twitter, City Light says this was caused by “a downed tree that came into contact with overhead power lines.” A commenter on our partner site West Seattle Blog says the culprit tree appears to have been one that fell near the 509 ramp on the Olson/1st/etc. hill.

7:24 AM: Thanks for the texts. More than 3,700 homes and businesses have lost power, from White Center to Westwood. No indication yet of the cause. Updates to come.

8:01 AM: Most have been restored after about an hour. Map shows one pocket remains, almost 400 customers in the Greenbridge area. (Added) SCL attributes the outage to “an underground issue.”

8:15 AM: The outage footprint, and cause, is similar to this December outage.

Mid-evening, the National Weather Service issued a Wind Advisory alert … and a few hours later, the wind arrived. So far in the North Highline area, we have two major power outages with almost 11,000 customers out of power, plus another big outage in Burien. Stay indoors – lots of trees and wires down around the region.

8:39 AM: A power outage is affecting parts of White Center and south West Seattle. City Light map shows 2,100+ out. We’re checking out an apparently related crash in Highland Park.

9:37 AM: That’s the car whose driver went off the road on the Highland Park Way hill. No serious injuries reported. Meantime, most affected by the outage are back on; just under 300 customers in West Seattle’s Puget Ridge neighborhood remain out.

10:21 AM: Everybody’s back on.

2:45 PM: Thanks for the tips! 3,760 are without power in a White Center/West Seattle outage, according to the City Light map. No cause yet.

2:58 PM: The outage is affecting some traffic signals, including on Roxbury – remember that an out or flashing signal becomes a 4-way stop. Also reported to be affected: At least part of Westwood Village.

3:20 PM: There’s a multi-vehicle crash at an apparently affected intersection, 16th/107th, with one car reported on its side. King County Sheriff’s Deputies are on scene. Meanwhile, we have a message out to SCL seeking the latest on the outage’s cause.

3:35 PM: We’re hearing that at least some of those affected are back on.

3:39 PM: The map shows just under 400 customers now still without power, mostly in the Greenbridge area. Adding the updated screengrab above.

3:51 PM: Here’s the crash scene at 16th/107th, east side of the intersection:

Deputies say three cars were involved and the signal (back on now) was out at the time. No injuries. They’re just waiting for tow trucks.

5:56 PM: SCL map shows everybody’s back on.

6:07 PM: SCL tells us that “underground cable failure” is what they believe to have been the cause.

In case you slept right through it, White Center did lose power for a few minutes early today, possibly related to a West Seattle outage that was already partly over by then. Here’s a screengrab of the Seattle City Light outage map during the short-lived outage:

No word on the cause so far, but it’s been a blustery night.

Thanks for the tip! 55 Seattle City Light customers have been without power since just after 4:30 pm. The utility has not yet said what caused it but says workers have been dispatched.

Thanks for the tip! 203 customers are without power as of 4:39 pm. There was a smaller outage, short-lived, in White Center early this morning too.

UPDATE: The outage lasted just a few hours. This truck reportedly was the culprit:

(Reader photo)

4:36 PM: The mapped outage started shortly after 4 pm and is affecting 3,639 customers. Some traffic signals are out on Roxbury – remember that a dark signal = 4-way stop. No official cause yet from SCL but multiple commenters on our West Seattle site report hearing booms just before losing power.

6:58 PM: The outage is over. Here’s what SCL tells us caused it: “It was caused by a compromised stem cable leading down into an underground feeder. Crews were able to isolate it and restore power.”

5 PM: Part of White Center is affected by a huge Seattle City Light outage – here’s the full map. SCL says a crash on East Marginal Way near Boeing Field is to blame – in all, more than 16,000 homes and businesses are without power.

5:25 PM: Here’s the scene near the Museum of Flight where apparently multiple poles came down:

Back in December, we covered the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council getting briefed unofficially on the proposal for Water District 45 to merge into Water District 20. The measure was on today’s ballot. In the first round of results published tonight, it’s passing overwhelmingly – though the number of votes is small:

Yes 211 (86%)
No 35 (14%)

Here’s a map of soon-to-go-out-of-existence District 45.