Here’s what PSE says caused 13,000 Bellingham customers to be without power Sunday
More than 13,000 Puget Sound Energy customers in Bellingham were without power for approximately an hour and a half on Sunday afternoon, Aug. 25.
PSE spokesperson Andrew Padula told The Bellingham Herald an equipment failure was to blame for the outage, which started at 3:56 p.m.
According to social media posts at the time, most of the affected customers were on the south side of Bellingham, in Fairhaven and downtown and along Chuckanut Drive, though the PSE outage map showed customers affected on the north end of Lake Samish.
Padula said PSE crews were able to re-route power and restore service to the 13,283 affected customers by 5:36 p.m. He also said there were no lingering problems Monday.
According to the PulsePoint app, the Bellingham Fire Department responded to a number of calls during the outage, including:
▪ A report of wires down at 3:57 p.m. in the 1400 block of Grant Street.
▪ A report of a fire alarm at 3:58 p.m. in the 1200 block of 11th Street.
▪ A rescue at 4:02 p.m. in the 900 block of North Forest Street.
▪ A report of a commercial fire at 4:08 p.m. at the Bellingham sewer treatment plant.
▪ An elevator rescue at 4:14 p.m. along Old Fairhaven Parkway.
▪ A report of a structure fire at 4:24 p.m. in the 1200 block of North Forest Street.
The fire department has not returned a message asking if any of those incidents were related to the power outage.
South Whatcom Fire Authority Chief Rod Topel said Bellingham Fire, along with North Whatcom Fire and Rescue and Whatcom County District 7, still was able to assist his crews on a vehicle fire that spread to a garage at 4:08 p.m. in the 2400 block of Yew Street Road.
In that fire, Topel told The Herald that a 2007 Nissan Frontier that was parked approximately eight feet from the garage caught fire. The fire spread to the building, but fortunately, the garage doors were closed, limiting the amount of damage to the garage and keeping it from further spreading to the attached house.
Topel estimated the total damages to the Frontier, which was a total loss, and the garage at between $60,000 and $70,000.
This story was originally published August 27, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
