PSE responds to storm with nearly 500 people, restoration work ongoing

As the Northshore area braces for more storms later in the week, crews are still working on recovering from the last that rolled through over the weekend. While power is expected to return to most customers by 6 p.m. on Tuesday, there may be some people still left in the dark.

September 1, 2015 2:19 pm

As the Northshore area braces for more storms later in the week, crews are still working on recovering from the last that rolled through over the weekend. While power is expected to return to most customers by 6 p.m. on Tuesday, there may be some people still left in the dark.

PSE crews continue to make steady progress restoring power to customers impacted by Saturday’s damaging windstorm. Much of the restoration is happening with a handful of customers at a time. There is a large number of damage points – 900 – that are spread across a large geographic area – hundreds of square miles.

Approximately 75-percent of these damage locations impact less than 10 customers, with the majority of outages are in Whatcom and Skagit Counties.

Crews will continue working until power is restored to all customers. Additional crews have been brought in to support restoration efforts. We have nearly 500 people in the field:

  • 78 line crews: these are four person teams who make repairs that are often intensive and time-consuming
  • 45 service crews
  • 11 substation inspectors
  • 111 damage assessors and other field crew
  • Hundreds of support staff coordinating crews and field personnel

As we restore power to customers, those crews will reinforce and accelerate efforts, particularly in Kitsap, Whatcom and Skagit counties and Whidbey Island. Approximately 21,000 customers remain without power as of 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Aug 31. More than 238,000 customers throughout PSE’s service area were impacted by the storm.

It is estimated that power will be restored to all customers on or before the times noted below. We expect most customers to have power restored sooner — the times noted are for the last customers in those counties.

Restoration is complete in the following areas. Our crews are sweeping these areas to confirm our customers have power and pick up any remaining outages. We ask our customers in those areas if they are still out to report their outage via the myPSEapp or online at PSE.com/outagemap. Customers can also call to report outages at 1-888-225-5773.

  • North King County
  • South King County
  • Thurston County
  • Vashon Island
  • Kittitas County
  • Pierce County

The myPSE app and pse.com/outagemap are the best places to report an outage, get restoration times and outage information.

Please remember to treat all downed power lines as if they are energized and extremely dangerous. Keep yourself and others away from them.