Nov 21 9:40pm – The Wave / Astound crews have spliced the fiber and continue their work. These people are our heroes. It’s long hours in horrible conditions with another storm on the way. We welcome crews from the region to help PSE and everyone restore power and communications. Good work to all and be SAFE.
Nov 21 6:50PM PSE crews are mostly complete, Wave/Astound crews are moving in to begin splicing, we estimate we will be up by midnight tonight.
Update Nov 21 1:00pm PSE should have power up and area clear by 6 so Astound can begin splicing work. Possible restoration by midnight PST.
November 20 9:59am – The bomb cyclone hit the Pacific Northwest and caused incredible amounts of damage. Over 650,000 homes were without power. PSE, Snohomish County PUD and Seatle City Light reporting and Canada and Vancouver island were impacted. Deepest Low Pressure Center in Northwest History was recorded during this storm. Cliff Mass Weather Blog Report. The storm has a wikipedia page. While it may seem like Bellingham and Skagit county avoided the impacts, areas like Bow Hill, Sudden Valley, Lake Whatcom and the south end were heavily impacted. Our uplink site is fiber fed from near the Skagit County Airport but the fiber between Bellingham and there was severed in a slide. The road is out of service and it is indeterminate when crews will be able to get in. PSE is on-site today Nov 21 at 11:00am with 9 crews trying to do repairs, followed by our Fiber provider Astound/Wave. There is no estimated time of recovery at this point. We are working with other carriers to make our uplink location more redundant in the near future.
The Seattle area has large swaths through Redmond, Bellevue and the east side that are still without power and it could be days if not weeks before restoration. This was a huge event and crews are overwhelmed and being brought in from out of state. We all hope everyone stays safe as we move through this outage. Unfortunately more storm activity is on the way that may also impede with up to 10″ of rain forecast.
