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Queen Anne blackout caused by junction box failure

September 28th, 2009 · Comments

Roberto Bonaccorso from Seattle City Light just sent me an email with the most up to date information the city has on what caused last night’s power outages in Queen Anne and Magnolia. He writes,

What we (City Light) know at this point is that a planned repair in an underground vault near the Seattle Center was completed on schedule early Saturday morning. In order to prepare a test of the repair, power for the Center was diverted to an alternate feeder (a feeder is a big line that transmits power to large areas of the city).

At that point, a junction box failed on the alternate feeder. Power was switched to a second alternate feeder in order to identify what repairs needed to be made. On Sunday, we had a failure on this second alternate feeder at another location.

Crews were sent out to isolate the problem and our switching operators were able to restore power to customers using multiple feeders. Meanwhile repairs are ongoing to the original junction box and failed cable.

At this time power has been restored to all affected by last night’s outages in Queen Anne and Magnolia. According to Bonaccorso there is no estimate for the completion of the original repairs.

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  • Name
    Thanks, Queen Anne View! This is the first post I have found so far with a reasonable explanation for the power outages we experienced this weekend. But is it related to the outage on Wed. 9/16, too? Just seems too coincidental to be random.
  • QueenAnneView
    The power outage on 9/16 was never fully fixed, just re-routed (http://www.queenanneview.com/2009/09/22/power-t...). That's why they scheduled an outage for Saturday, 9/26, to fix the original problem. But then there were complications, and the original problem was never really fixed. I.e. they're still working on it.

    Thanks so much for your support!
  • Name
  • I can hardly wait until the wet and windy weather starts. If their auxiliary feeders are in such great shape that they fail in perfect weather, we're going to need a lot of candles this winter.
  • BooBoo3
    We grovel in apology to our neighbors in the vicinity of 7th Avenue West for the loudly misbehaving security alarm that followed the restoration of power early this morning. We know who THEY are--they deserve awards!-- and they certainly know who WE are. So very sorry!
  • qaresident
    I understand a failure to the alternate feeder but what were all the sirens about and the serious lack of news coverage. King and Komo had nothing. I've never heard so many sirens and they continued for a long time. News stations and Seattle light should have stuff posted on internet immediately to let people know what is going on.

    It sure seems like there is a lot more power challenges in this area that Seattle City light is informing us about. What happend at Fisher plaza July 3 really makes me suspect Seattle City light didn't cause that too. There had been lots of power issues leading up to it. We have the right to know what is going on around here!!
  • QueenAnneView
    The sirens were most likely for the house fire at 8th and Galer that happened around the same time as the power outage last night. There had been some speculation that the fire was the cause of the outage, as several people witnessed a "bright flash" of a transformer box blowing, but our source at Seattle City Light has not confirmed that.
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