ISSAQUAH, Wash. — Saturday was supposed to be the day thousands of people without power from Tuesday’s strong storm were supposed to get their lights back on. Then Puget Sound Energy made another update: some homes wouldn’t get power for another two days.
“It’s a little bit disappointing,” said Jeff Norgaard. “It’s frustrating, I just want my power back. I want to take a hot shower, cold showers are not fun.”
PSE said more than 90% of its customers have had power restored. The new, latest expectation for everyone to get power back is mid-day Monday.
Norgaard lives in Issaquah. He hasn’t had power and has been charging his phone and lanterns up at work. It’s usually where he grabs his food before returning to the eastside.
“I just can’t wait until this is all over, I have great stories to tell,” he said, “I could see transformers blowing, I could hear trees cracking, it was crazy.”
PSE says their crews are working as fast and as safely as they can to restore power, but the work is intensive. Some sites take as long as 12 hours to finish a job, according to PSE spokesperson Andrew Padulla.
“We know you’re disappointed to be without power for this extended period of time. We appreciate your patience,” Padulla said in an interview Saturday, “We won’t stop until everyone’s lights are back on.
KIRO 7 witnessed PSE crews reconstructing power poles in Issaquah on Saturday. Padulla says PSE is having to clear trees from power lines, string up new ones, and the distribution lines have experienced “extensive damage.”
“A lot of the community areas are still dealing with a lot of those trees that are blocking down the roads and having to take those off the lines,” Padulla said. Padulla says, from the PSE crew’s perspective, it’s one of the worst storms since the Hannukah Eve storm of 2006. While he says that the storm brought widespread damage across the entire PSE service area, this storm has brought a similar amount of damage, in a more concentrated area.
“This is the craziest it’s ever been I’ve lived here my whole life and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Norgaard said.