The lights are on in Shoreline and Lake Forest Park
Sunday, February 14, 2021
| This was the status when the power first went out |
The two households by Shoreline Community College who lost power Friday night had their power restored after a short time.
| A few hours later, progress was being made |
Two very unlucky households are without power right now
Friday, February 12, 2021
A reminder from PSE: Preparing for winter weather, possible outages
Thursday, February 11, 2021
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| Snow falls on branches; branches fall on power lines; power goes out December 2020 Photo by Allen LaValle |
The City of Lake Forest Park would like to share this reminder from Puget Sound Energy (PSE):
Preparing for outages
PSE is closely watching the forecast, including receiving briefings from the National Weather Service, as wind and heavy snow can cause tree branches to fall onto power lines.
As we prepare for storm conditions, PSE encourages its customers to do the same:
- Make sure to have emergency supplies on hand at home and in your vehicle, such as extra batteries, flashlights, food and blankets
- Have a battery-powered radio ready to go
- Charge cell phones and mobile devices in case the power goes out
- Download the PSE mobile outage app to track and report outages, check status and get estimated restoration times, or visit https://www.pse.com/outage/outage-map
Safety first:
- Never touch or go within 35 feet of downed power lines because they might be energized. Call PSE at 1-888-225-5773 or 911 to report problems.
- Do not use a charcoal or gas grill to cook indoors. Never use a natural gas range for heating, or charcoal as an indoor heating source. This can cause a buildup of poisonous carbon monoxide gas.
- If you choose to use a portable home generator, read the manufacturer’s instructions for the safe operation of the generator. Do not operate generators indoors or in enclosed spaces to avoid the buildup of carbon monoxide.
- If you are using portable heaters, keep them away from furniture, draperies, and other flammable materials.
- Always use flashlights instead of candles.
Power's back on locally but City Light crews still have 25 locations to deal with
Friday, January 15, 2021
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| Power outages Friday 1-15-21 at 11:30pm |
Meanwhile, Puget Sound Energy (PSE) has outages from Bellingham to Olympia still has 400 locations serving 7000 customers who are still in the dark.
Read more...
Seattle City Light still working to restore power across system; 11 still without power locally
Thursday, January 14, 2021
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| 772 households without power |
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| 11 households without power locally |
Power outages 1am Thursday
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| This is the entire Seattle City Light coverage area with 191 individual outages affecting 2,700 customer |
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| Outages at 1am in the north end |
Power outages across the entire Seattle City Light coverage area - musing on the bad old days
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
Dear Readers - if you are lucky you will sleep through all of this and the power will be back on when you wake. If your alarm doesn't go off show this map to your boss!
The power lines in Shoreline and LFP are like a tree. Power comes from the south up the main trunk and then follows branches which get smaller and smaller until they end near the county line.
Almost all addresses have redundancy. That is, they are served by two power sources from different directions. When one goes out the other one kicks in. That's why you will get - under more normal circumstances - those very brief outages of less than a minute before the power comes back on.
When your lights flicker, that normally means that someone south of you just lost power.
Back in the days when City Light had only two vegetation trucks for its entire service area, every wind storm brought down branches on the lines and power outages were frequent and prolonged.
That's when I found out that my street had no redundancy and that there were about ten households on the very tip of my branch. Those were also the days when City Light couldn't tell with precision where the outages were.
There were not a lot of situations like this in Shoreline but there were a lot in Lake Forest Park. One January after power was restored to the branch ends after 4 days, the then mayor of Lake Forest Park, Dave Hutchinson, brought the newish head of City Light, Jose Carrasco, to a public meeting in Lake Forest Park, to explain what happened.
Most of my neighborhood attended.
Carrasco said that it was all about vegetation management. He expanded the fleet of trucks to 16 and started an aggressive program of trimming branches from power lines which continues today.
As a certified tree-hugger in fairly good standing, I cringe at the results to the trees. After they "trimmed" my birch trees they were so ugly that I took up their offer to cut them down and give me new little trees guaranteed not to grow into the lines.
However, whenever I look at one of the trees they have trimmed, I remember huddling in a blanket, freezing for five days with no heat, refrigeration, or ability to even have a hot cup of tea.
--Diane Hettrick
Power outage at midnight
Update 1am Seattle City Light: The number of outages has increased to over 66,000. The weather is keeping our crews very busy. Thank you all for your patience.
The Ballinger neighborhood is now in the dark.
Original article:
Power outage map shows widespread outages in Shoreline west of the freeway. Most of the Echo Lake neighborhood lacks power.
There are localized outages the length of Aurora in Shoreline.
A huge swath of outages runs diagonally from N 155th northwest up to the county line.
Right about midnight I heard the power lines / transformer / not sure what humming like a Star Trek episode and then all the power went out.
The Shoreline Area News may be a short edition this time, which is a shame because my In Box is overflowing.
Diane Hettrick, Editor
Read more...Small power outage south of Shorewood
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
An equipment failure Saturday kept Ballinger neighborhood in the dark
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
According to a City Light spokesperson,
"It was an equipment failure. It was not a transformer, as people on social media surmised, but a sectionalizer, which is a protective device that automatically isolates a faulted section of line from the rest of the distribution system."
This may be the culprit that caused your power outage on Monday
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Power's out - some flooding - and it's snowing
Monday, December 21, 2020
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| City Light power outage 5:15pm 12-21-20 |
UPDATE AT MIDNIGHT
1 person in northwest Shoreline has lost power.
1630 in Pinehurst in northeast Seattle, south of Jackson Park, will have their power restored by 7pm. A tree was the problem.
Storm drains have been overflowing. If it's much more than usual, call Customer Response if you are in Shoreline. 206-801-2700.
Or get a photo and the street location and we'll find the best place for you to send it to either city.
And it just started snowing.
Update 6pm - 1630 outages in Pinehurst because of a tree
Storm in the convergence zone Wednesday
Thursday, October 22, 2020
They were still working in north Seattle at 2:30am but Shoreline and LFP were clear.
Storm aftermath
Saturday, October 17, 2020
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| Photo by Alan Charnley |
Alan Charnley said that two hours before he took this photo, the tree was standing upright.
Power outage just south of 145th on 15th NE
Tree causes power outage in NW Shoreline for 1500
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
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| Power outages at 10:30pm October 13, 2020 |
- 206.684.3000 or
- 206.684.7400
Previous story:
City Light is now showing a large outage area in NW Shoreline with 1500 households in the dark because of a tree. Lake Forest Park still has an outage of 233 households without power. Most of the rest has been cleaned up.
We'll check in at midnight to see how things are doing.
Large Shoreline power outage repaired - many still without power
Power outages Tuesday
By Diane Hettrick
Currently at 4:30pm, 3650 people are without power in Shoreline and Lake Forest Park. City Light is not listing the causes.

Crews are going to be stretched thin.
Plan to get out the lanterns and turn on the generators because this may take a while.
The biggest local outage is in west Shoreline with 3000 people for one incident. If that is the usual 'tree takes down utility pole' scenario, those do take extra time. Police have to block the road, City Light has to bring in a new utility pole, then the crews can get to work. The good thing is that when that work is done, 3000 people will get power all at once.
The ones that take the longest are the single households outages. That's usually a branch or tree taking down the power line to the house. Crews prioritize for the outages with the most people.
Brief power outages Wednesday during wind event
Thursday, September 24, 2020
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| Seattle City Light has information on how to prepare for extended power outages here |
Around 8pm people in Shoreline and Lake Forest Park were starting to comment on flickering lights. When your lights flicker, it usually means that someone has lost power downstream from you, so I checked the outage map.
The wind gusted to around 30mph and it was enough for a tree to take out power for almost 200 people in Lake Forest Park.
An equipment failure in Shoreline left a dozen without power near the 4-Corners business district on Richmond Beach Road.
The power was restored by 1am. Only a few north Seattle locations are out at 2am but it's still windy.
Read more...
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