Seattle City Light repair crews restored power about 11 p.m. Wednesday to the final customers affected by a power outage in Capitol Hill, First Hill and South Lake Union that started when a truck crashed into a utility pole. The crash happened near the intersection of Denny Way and Yale Avenue about 8:45 a.m., toppling […] Seattle City Light repair crews restored power about 11 p.m. Wednesday to the final customers affected by a power outage in Capitol Hill, First Hill and South Lake Union that started when a truck crashed into a utility pole.
The crash happened near the intersection of Denny Way and Yale Avenue about 8:45 a.m., toppling the pole, along with power lines and three transformers, to the ground, and knocking out power for about 3,600 homes and businesses.
Mineral oil leaked from the damaged transformers and crews from Seattle City Light, Seattle Public Utilities and the Washington Department of Ecology contained it with absorbent materials. There were no PCBs in the transformer oil.
Electrical crews isolated the damage and restored power to most customers about 10 a.m. Full restoration for the remaining 30 customers required repair of all the damaged equipment.
General boundaries for the initial outage were E Denny Way on the north, E Columbia Street on the south, Interstate 5 on the west and 21st Avenue on the east. Not all homes and businesses in that area were affected.
Seattle City Light is the 10th largest public electric utility in the United States. It has some of the lowest cost customer rates of any urban utility, providing reliable, renewable and environmentally responsible power to nearly 1 million Seattle area residents. City Light has been greenhouse gas neutral since 2005, the first electric utility in the nation to achieve that distinction.