Seattle Power Outage: Heavy Snow Downed Electricity Cables, Hundreds Of Flights Canceled

Even as Winter Storm Maya moved Midwest and icy showers in Seattle transitioned to rain Monday, power outages continued in the area. According to the National Weather Service (NWS), snowstorms in the region resulted in downed trees and power lines.

There were no reported injuries due to power lines so far but thousands of homes were without power. There are three major energy providers in Seattle — Puget Sound Energy (PSE), Seattle City Light and Snohomish County PUD — and customers of all three were affected.

“Crews have worked through the day continuing to restore power to customers impacted by the series of winter storms that moved through the Puget Sound region over the weekend. While we made good progress, today’s snow storm has caused some new outages, primarily in Thurston and Kitsap counties, due to heavy snowfall. As of 6 p.m. [local time, 9 p.m. EST], there are approximately 20,000 customers without power in our service area,” a pop-up message on PSE's website said.

At 11:15 p.m. EST, the power outage map on PSE’s website showed 45,000 people affected by the snowstorm, including in other areas of Washington state. At the same time, the power outage map on Seattle City Light’s website showed over 21,000 customers without access to electricity.

NWS put the number of Snohomish County PUD customers to be affected at over 3,000. According to their power outage map, which also included parts of Everett, over 7,000 people were deprived of power Monday.

Residents were told to take precautions such as staying 35 feet away from areas with downed power lines, and not to use generators, grills and gas ovens for indoor heating.

Around 5 p.m. local time Monday, Federal Aviation Administration issued a “ground stop” at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. According to FlightAware, over 300 flights were canceled and over 200 delayed flights delayed, as airport staff struggled to de-ice planes before their scheduled take-off time.

“We don’t have anything arriving right now until we can get more aircraft out,” Port of Seattle spokesman Perry Cooper said, the Seattle Times reported. “We’re just waiting on mother nature to see how long this will last.”

Seattle Public Schools will be closed Tuesday due to the severe weather. Classes at the University of Washington and Seattle Colleges were also suspended due to the same reason. Other districts that announced closures due to snow include Bellevue, Bellingham, Edmonds, Federal Way, Highline, Issaquah, Kent, Lake Washington, Mercer Island, Renton, Shoreline, Snohomish and Tacoma.

NWS meteorologist Logan Johnson opined the worst of the Winter Storm Maya was over for Seattle, as warm air moved north from western Washington on Monday afternoon, and while the city can expect brief spells of snow showers Wednesday, it will be accompanied by rain. “It won’t be anything like what we’ve seen the past few days,” Johnson said.

Nevertheless, a winter advisory was issued for the Seattle area from Monday 6 p.m. through Tuesday 4 a.m. local time. Although the change in the temperature was to bring an end to icy roads in the area, it could also potentially lead to flooding, especially in areas where storm drains were blocked by snow. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said at a news conference Monday residents should also expect mudslides in some areas, which is common after ice melts.