Saturday afternoon started off exciting enough: Lots of rain. Lightning and thunder starting around 4:40 PM. Then some hail. LOTS of hail in some places.
This is from Ballard:
https://twitter.com/brucenourish/status/323222228542042112
Then the power outage reports started coming in. The first report of lights out came in at 5:53 PM, from Wallyhood:
Power outage along 45th. Traffic signals are dark.
— Wallyhood Seattle (@wallyhood) April 14, 2013
Lower Wallingford. Then SE Green Lake. Eastlake. Montlake. Ravenna and NE 65th Street. South University District.
When the Seattle City Light Outage Map finally updated, things looked like this:
Screen grab of the Seattle City Lights outage page, taken around 7 PM. Service to Green Lake and Montlake had already been restored, but nearly 15,000 other customers were still affected.
Here’s the Seattle City Light twitter feed, with the details:
Power outage in the UDist affecting about 10,000 customers caused by an equipment failure at Univ. Substation.
— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) April 14, 2013
Crews are working to restore power in the University District. Initial estimate for full restoration set for 1 a.m.
— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) April 14, 2013
@wdzimmy Thanks Drew.
— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) April 14, 2013
Cause of equipment failure at University Substation was a lighting strike. Damage took down the entire substation.
— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) April 14, 2013
Repair crews are bringing large "feeder" power lines back to service. As neighborhoods are energized, some localized problems could occur.
— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) April 14, 2013
Here's a look at the damage where the lightning strike hit at University Substation. pic.twitter.com/JmlIkSFd0r
— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) April 14, 2013
And as now (7:30 PM), power is coming back in some of the affected areas.
Quite a day. A good day to be paying attention to Twitter:
@lauralambeth @mcmahonuw @SEACityLight Ha ha! Right on. It's all cats and pictures of food, until the power goes out.
— Ravenna Blog (@RavennaBlog) April 14, 2013
Oh yeah. And apparently there was a car on fire at the Roosevelt Whole Foods:
Power out, cars are blowing up outside of Whole Foods, and it’s hailing in Seattle. This might be the end of it all, folks…
— Drew Zimmerman (@wdzimmy) April 14, 2013
thank you for the information