On Sunday, Jan. 6, Puget Sound Fire released the following Power Outage Safety tips:
Power is out for many areas after last night’s wind storm that had gusts of 60 mph.
Falling trees and tree limbs led to most of the outages, as well as causing damage to homes and blocking streets.
The power outages have caused many signal lights to stop working. For everyone’s safety, consider blacked out signal lights as 4-way stops.
Your firefighters want you to stay safe while the power is out. Here are some safety tips:
- Unplug sensitive electronic devices such as computers, TVs, and newer washing machines that have circuit boards in them.
- Use flashlights, not candles for illumination.
- NEVER bring gas generators or BBQs too close or into your home.
- Use portable heaters according to the manufacturer’s recommendations.
- Make sure your smoke and CO alarms are working.
- Check on the elderly and infirm regularly.
- Be patient. PSE and Seattle City Light are working hard to get power restored.
- Watch for power lines and assume they are active and a hazard to you.
Don’t forget to give PSE and SCL employees who are working hard to restore power “a brake.” Here are live links to their webpages and their outage maps:
Many of the remaining outages are due to damage to distribution and service lines—these are the power poles and lines that serve neighborhoods and lead to individual homes. Crews have to make repairs at each site and power is often restored to small groups of customers at a time. pic.twitter.com/gYd46E7SXG
— Puget Sound Energy (@PSETalk) January 8, 2019