PORT TOWNSEND — More than 1,200 downtown Port Townsend customers had no electrical power for about an hour and a half Wednesday after two transformers blew at around 1:45 p.m.
Power was restored in stages, with the majority coming back online at 3:15 p.m. and the remainder about 45 minutes later.
During the outage, Port Townsend City Hall, the Jefferson County Courthouse and all merchants in the downtown and uptown areas were without power.
Puget Sound Energy reported that about 1,264 customers lost power.
PSE crews inspected the transformers and wiring at the Kearney Street substation — which controls the downtown and uptown shopping districts as well as Sims Way — and found no specific cause for the outage, said Mackenzie McDowell, spokeswoman
“We don’t know what happened,” McDowell said.
“Something tripped the circuit, but we don’t know what.”
Joanna Sanders, Port Townsend assistant city clerk, was in Don’s Pharmacy when the outage struck.
She heard “a loud pop” even though the substation was several blocks away.
The outage blanked out traffic lights at major intersections.
Port Townsend Police Sgt. Troy Surber directed traffic at the traffic signal at the intersection of Water and Taylor streets, while portable stop signs were placed at the corner of Kearney Street and Sims Way.
At City Hall, the front doors automatically locked when the electricity was interrupted. They were propped open during the outage.
District Court closed during the outage, but most county offices remained open, with the Superior Court Clerk’s personnel cleaning the office.
Workers thought about catching up on filing, “but if you file in the dark, the papers will end up in the wrong folder,” said Lori Bailey, assistant clerk.
At the Port Townsend Food Co-op, the staff waited about an hour before moving perishables into the freezer, then moving it back when the power came back on a few minutes later.
The PSE office at 181 Quincy St. stayed open throughout the outage, using generators to supply light as customers came in to pay their bills.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
