Snohomish County PUD reported that thousands of South Snohomish County customers lost power at the height of Thursday night’s ferocious windstorm. And for residents and businesses in some Edmonds neighborhoods, the outages continued through Friday night.
PUD spokesman Neil Neil Neroutsos said that South Snohomish County experienced widespread outages of approximately 4,000-5,000 customers in Mountlake Terrace, Edmonds and Lynnwood, with the bulk coming between 10:30-11 p.m. Thursday. Most power was restored early Friday morning between 2-4 a.m. “There are still pockets of customers out of power,” he said. “We have crews working around the clock to restore power to our remaining customers.”
My Edmonds News received reports of power knocked out to several neighborhoods, with some areas — including downtown along 4th Avenue South — still without power 24 hours later. The Edmonds IGA store, located between 4th and 5th Avenue South along Howell Way, was working to salvage or give away rapidly thawing frozen foods due to lack of power.
“Our business representatives are in touch with local businesses to keep them updated regarding our progress,” Neroutsos said.
An estimated 15,000 customers were without power throughout Snohomish County Thursday night; that number was revised down to 11,500 as of late Friday afternoon.
It is 12:10PM and Point Edwards is still without power since about 10PM last night.
Does anyone around City Park have their power back on yet? Probably on the same grid as Point Edwards.
I swung by IGA around 4:30pm Friday and the power was still out.
24 hrs without power in 98012
“24 hrs without power in 98012”
Wow! Welcome to Third World Puget Sound.
It is 5 a.m. Point Edwards still without power.
Point Edwards power just restored at 5:28 a.m. Off for 31 hours. So thankful for electricity and other blessings.
5:30 and power has finally been restored by City Park; 31 hours!
Lights came on and woke me at 5:30am in Point Edwards, Edmonds. I’m afraid to open the freezer. 🙂
Why are so many power lines still above ground when we live in an area with tall trees which regularly blow down during windstorms?
The question “why we don’t bury our power lines” often comes up after an outage. I found a good article that explains it:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/07/25/why-most-cities-dont-bury-power-lines/
A few highlights from the article:
Underground utilities cost 5 to 10 times more in new construction.
Underground utilities have a shorter lifespan.
Underground utilities are more expensive to maintain.
One conversion estimate was $226 per household per month for 10 years.
That estimate adds up to $27,000 per household. I think that would be a tough thing to sell to most residents.
31 hours is a very long time to be without power. I wonder if there could be a way to supply a generator for places like IGA which has so much that is perishable. Or could we figure out what happened in that area and see if there is some way to avoid a repeat.
Back in 2006, my immediate neighborhood was without power for 55 hours. A tree brought down the power line. Has the power been restored at the Edmonds IGA?
7700 block on 203rd st, 2 am fri to 6:50 pm sat, unacceptable, the grid needs massive updating
This has been going on for years and years in the Westgate area of Edmonds. A couple of years ago I got tired of it and asked Snohomish PUD to send me the information they had on outages in my neighborhood. Even their own information proved there are way more outages in this area than almost anywhere else. I gave this information to the Edmonds News and they did a story on it: https://myedmondsnews.com/2012/12/are-westgate-residents-more-in-the-dark/
Here’s the first part of the story:
“Do you live in the Westgate neighborhood? Do you feel your power goes out more often than it should?
If so, you’re not alone. Several Westgate-area citizens have questioned the reliability of electric power in their neighborhood, and feel they experience longer and more frequent power outages than residents of other areas.
And according to Snohomish County PUD’s Neil Neroutsos, they’re right.
“Last year the average customer on this circuit was without power for 890 minutes, more than ten times the 2011 overall system outage figure of 83.3 minutes,” he said. “In 2011 customers served by this circuit had the highest average outage time of any PUD customer group.” ”
Things haven’t changed.