In the early hours of Friday morning, many residents of the Pine-Olive-Way-Howell-Area-Triangle were going through a night most of us can only imagine in our worst nightmares: no electricity, no TV, no internet. CHS visited the streets of the neighborhood to check out the darkness and found a heroic effort underway.
Seattle City Light crews worked through the dark and stormy night into Friday morning to repair electricity infrastructure damaged Thursday when a contractor accidentally dug up an underground line near Belmont and Denny, causing a voltage spike that ultimately knocked down overhead wires in the area
At its peak, around 6,500 customers were without power.
Early Friday morning, City Light crews were able to restore service for the final 1,200 or so. By the time much of the city was up and off to work or school or play, POWHAT life was back to its electric self.
@SEACityLight out here working like heroes to restore power at the E. Olive and Belmont intersection on Capitol Hill. @jseattle pic.twitter.com/6noW89Zj81
— Alex Garland (@AGarlandPhoto) September 13, 2019
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Thanks to City Light for getting the power back in only 19 hours. That had to be a lot of work. Those people do amazing work in horrible conditions sometimes. But are we sure the underground line was Belmont at Denny? There is a large street project on Belmont between Howell and Olive. (The flagger denied it was them when we asked.) I know there was a burned out power line near Goodwill that had to be replaced as a result of the damage, but there was no sign of any construction equipment there.
Also is that contractor responsible for the freezer items that melted and went bad because of their error. Who takes care of that?
“(T)he refrigerator will only keep food safely cold for about four hours if unopened during a power outage, according to the USDA. A full freezer will hold the temperature for about 48 hours if full (24 hours of half full), the USDA says.”
Your mileage may vary. Check the internet for all sorts of advice as to what to keep and throw away.
Buy some dry ice from the grocery store and put it in your freezer. Should be good for a day or two. Wikihow tells you everything about safe handling of dry ice. (caution: multiple ways to kill yourself with dry ice if you don’t follow the simple directions).
Andrew (professional dry ice user)
Also, keep a thermometer in your freezer. Mine showed still well below freezing after 19 hours. And my ice trays were still solid. Another clue to use.
Your renters insurance
Many businesses had to close for the duration of the outage, does the construction company take any responsibility at all for the damage that they caused to small business?
LOL. This America, of course not.
You would have to sue them