PORT TOWNSEND — Electrical power lost Wednesday night was restored to about 4,000 customers within the Port Townsend city limit by about 1:30 a.m. Thursday.
Power was out for about three hours after three voltage regulators at the Kearney Street substation failed, according to Jim Parker, Jefferson County Public Utility District general manager.
Replaced next week?
The regulators failed simply because of age, Parker said, and will be replaced at a cost of about $75,000, hopefully sometime next week.
The first calls about the outage came in at 10:30 p.m., he said.
Power service for the affected area, which included downtown and uptown Port Townsend as well as the fairgrounds area and North Beach, was transferred to the Hastings Street substation.
The switch took more time than it ordinarily would have because of repairs already in progress at the Hastings Street facility, Parker said.
During the closure of the Hastings Street substation, power for the customers it served was divided between the Kearney Street and Irondale facilities.
The area south of Safeway and along Hastings Avenue did not lose power because it was hooked up to the Irondale facility, Parker said.
The three failed voltage regulators were contained in one unit weighing about 30,000 pounds.
They will be replaced by three smaller standalone units, each of which weighs about 3,500 pounds.
All materials are on hand. The delay is because the PUD must secure a crane large enough to lift the failed unit.
The replacement with the smaller units means that “in the future if they fail, we can pull them out with our own equipment,” Parker said.
The outage left the downtown area dark, with several restaurants closing early.
Several people gathered in the moonlight on the beach near Better Living Through Coffee, with some of them taking part in a moonlight swim.
A small number of customers were in the Uptown Pub drinking by candlelight and being entertained by Dave Sheehan on an acoustic guitar.
Facebook exchange
Some power customers took to Facebook to exchange information about the incident.
Parker said among the calls he received was one person asking if the outage had been caused by a solar flare, while another theorized it was the result of a terrorist attack to commemorate the 9/11 emergency.
In the case of an outage, PUD customers are asked to phone 360-385-5800 for information.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
