Thousands left without power for hours after strong winds, heavy rain slam area

SEATTLE -- Strong winds and heavy rain moving through the Puget Sound region knocked down trees and power lines, leaving thousands without power for hours Tuesday night.

The downpour led to urban street flooding and a backed-up sewer forced a Seattle school to cancel first day of classes on Wednesday.

Puget Sound Energy reported it had outages initially affecting thousands in North Bend, Sammamish, Auburn and near Alger.

PSE said about 1,800 were initially affected in Auburn,  but that all but about 330 had been restored by 9:30 p.m. and the remaining customers were to be restored at about 1:30 a.m.; about 970 were affected in North Bend, estimated restoration at midnight; about 200 in Sammamish, with estimated restoration of 10 p.m.; and 2,800 near Alger in Skagit and Whatcom counties had their power restored at 8:30 p.m.



Seattle City Light crews said it was working to restore power to homes and businesses after high winds blew trees into power lines in northeast Seattle. The outages initially affected 9,800 customers from Wedgwood to Lake City. At 6:20 p.m., City Light said power had been restored to all but about 900 customers.

The outages added to afternoon commuter woes as traffic lights went dark at intersections in the affected area.

Updates on restoration are available online at www.seattle.gov/light/sysstat/ and for Puget Sound Energy.

In addition, heavy rain that swept through the Puget Sound region caused some street flooding, such as shown in the attached photo.



Seattle's Fairview Christian School announced it was canceling the first day of classes on Wednesday because of flood damage. The heavy rains inundated sewers, which backed up into the school, officials said.

Because of the flooding, a sewer line backed up in Seattle's Fairview Christian School. The opening day of classes was canceled for Wednesday because of the damage. (KCPQ-TV)