KING COUNTY, Wash. — Falling trees caused severe power outages across Western Washington and thousands of customers are still in the dark nearly a week later.
The majority of the outages are in King County and with Thanksgiving just days away, we’re learning the storm brought down parts of the utility’s electrical grid.
Losing the electrical grid is something that usually happens on the East Coast where there are hurricanes.
But last week’s bomb cyclone unleashed hurricane-force winds in parts of western Washington, something that is unusual here.
The power has been restored in the Renton Highlands neighborhood after nearly a week without it.
“Now I just have to handwrite everything,” said Mindy Bick.
Mindy has been working from home for Maple Valley Electric.
“And I normally work on a big computer rather than a laptop, " she said. “So, it’s a little more limiting.”
The only way she could dispatch her residential electric crews on this sixth day in the dark was by cell phone.
How did they cope? “Generator, off and on,” she said. “A lot of board games and just a lot of family time.”
Her neighbors had to manage without power, despite their underground lines.
But Puget Sound Energy’s transmission system took a big hit this time.
“The bomb cyclone caused perhaps greater damage than we thought,” said UW electrical engineering professor Baosen Zhang. “And especially as you mentioned for the transmission system.”
Dr. Zhang says the bomb cyclone produced hurricane-style winds in parts of Western Washington.
KIRO 7 saw the deadly result as trees toppled onto and through roofs. Dr. Zhang says the impact was felt all over the Eastside when the transmission system went out.
“One, they cause a lot of outages,” said Dr. Zhang. “They feed (power to) a lot of people and take a while to fix.”
He says it means local utilities will likely have to factor that in for the future.
“If we expect to see this kind of storm more frequently,” said Dr. Zhang. “We should think about hardening the system.”
PSE said in an email that they have restored most of their 400 miles of transmission lines since the storm blew through. These are the lines across the Cascades that can only be seen from a helicopter.
But for now, the power is back on in this neighborhood and Thanksgiving is back on track.
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