A dark Elliott Bay Book Co. (Image: @7andrew7 via Twitter)

Reports of a power outage extending from around 14th and Madison to Broadway and Pine and down to Melrose are coming in to CHS. Traffic lights are out at intersections along the Madison arterial and many businesses and residential buildings in the zone are dark.

Seattle City Light says it is aware of the outage but does not yet have details about its scope or cause.

There have been reports of downed trees and small landslides through the morning including a slide and a significant tree falling near 14th Ave and E Lynn below Interlaken Park. There is no indication at this time that a tree is to blame for the Capitol Hill outage.

With the outage, a series of automatic fire alarms and elevator rescue calls in the area have been reported to Seattle Fire.

UPDATE: Seattle City Light tells us that 4,800 customers are currently without power on Capitol Hill, in the CD and on First Hill. There’s no cause pinned down yet so the current restoration estimate is pretty iffy — but SCL is saying 3p. You can monitor this page for updates http://seattle.gov/light/sysstat/ though the outage does not yet appear on the map.

UPDATE: As of 12:25 p.m. Seattle City Light says all but seven customers have power again.

UPDATE: City Light chalks this one up to “underground cable failure” but can’t tell us exactly where the problem occurred. We’ve heard that kind of breakdown before — it’s basically City Light’s equivalent of “shit happens.” Old equipment + dirt and dust + wear and tear + extremely wet weather. All customers are back in service.