Blaine power outage lasts up to 26 hours for some residents

Some Blaine residents experienced a nearly 26-hour power outage December 12 after a switch at the substation failed.

Public works director Bernie Ziemianek said a feeder in one of the city’s primary conductors came loose early in the morning of December 12, shortly after midnight, and some residents didn’t get power until 2 a.m. December 13. 

Public works crews found a pole line malfunction near Mitchell Avenue after heavy winds and rain, Ziemianek said.  This did some damage to the electrical facilities, he said. 

Puget Sound Energy (PSE) came out to fix the switch at the substation at Hughes and Yew avenues, while public works crews worked to bring customers back onto the system, Ziemianek said.

The majority of city customers’ power was out for about 15 hours, Ziemianek said. The outage did not impact Semiahmoo. PSE restored the breaker 20 hours after the initial outage. In this time, crews restored power to some customers, the last of whom were restored around 2 a.m. December 13. 

On December 12, city administration were brought in to answer calls around 2 a.m. and calls went out to those affected around 3 a.m., Ziemianek said. At 4:30 p.m., a city announcement said crews had located the problem and were working with PSE to install a new switch at the substation. It said time of restoration was still unknown and that the outage could extend into the late evening or early morning.

The power outage was long enough that the Blaine school district canceled school December 13 because the outage affected multiple locations on the district’s campus. 

“At this point in time I think we’re all buttoned-up,” Ziemianek said in a December 13 phone interview. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to staff yet since they are just getting in now after working 24 hours straight.”