More than 15K San Juan Islands customers lose power after system-wide outage

More than 15,000 customers across the San Juan Islands are without power on Wednesday after an accident occurred on the mainland.

At approximately 8:30 a.m., Orcas Power & Light Cooperative (OPALCO) reported the outage as a “system-wide outage” that is affecting all of San Juan County, OPALCO announced.

Mainland accident triggers system-wide failure affecting 15,000 San Juan Island residents

OPALCO noted that the outage is a Puget Sound Energy (PSE) outage that originated on the mainland.

PSE crews, alongside some Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) crews, are investigating the cause of the outage. At 8:50 a.m., PSE confirmed the outage was caused by an accident on the mainland, though it did not specify what the accident was specifically.

At 10:30 a.m., OPALCO confirmed that a wire is down in an unspecified location, and a cruiser is on site at the PSE outage location.

A side-by-side photo of the wire down. (Photo courtesy of the Orcas Power & Light Cooperative)

As of 11:30 a.m., 15,071 of OPALCO’s 15,403 customers remain impacted across three outages in the San Juan Islands.

There is currently no estimated time for the power to be restored. PSE anticipates that the outage will take longer than four hours to be restored, but does not expect the outage to be active overnight.

For additional information, visit the PSE outage map.

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