Reader Chris Blakeley sent us this photo of the power outages aftermath today, snapped at about 4:30 this afternoon outside Caffe Zingaro on Mercer St.

“It seemed…fitting somehow,” he wrote.

The two outages today left several residents and businesses without power for most of the day, including, at some point, Seattle Center, the Space Needle and a number of local cafes and coffee shops (whatever will us Seattle-ites do without our caffeine fix!). Power is still out for some 500 people in Lower Queen Anne, which City Light hopes to restore by 8:40 tonight. Meanwhile, City Council voted to go ahead with a 13.8 percent City Light rate increase stating January 1, 2010.

Thanks to Chris for the picture!