Steilacoom went completely dark for two straight days this week, as crews performed planned maintenance on the single substation that powers the entire town. The outage ran from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. both Thursday and Friday, shutting down restaurants, stores, and even a Ketron Island ferry run, while residents scrambled to keep refrigerators cold, coffee brewing, and virtual-school assignments on track.
The blackout was not the result of a storm or equipment failure but a deliberate, scheduled shutdown tied to the town's precarious power setup. According to the Tacoma News Tribune, Steilacoom Town Administrator Paul Loveless said the town initiates an outage like this every three or four years for required maintenance. Workers used the window to perform proactive maintenance on the local substation, which supplies 100 percent of Steilacoom's power, the paper reported.
Why One Substation Controls an Entire Town
Steilacoom Public Works runs its own municipal electric utility, serving roughly 3,782 customer accounts across the town, according to the Washington Power Outage Map. But like most municipal utilities in the state, Steilacoom buys its bulk wholesale power from the federal Bonneville Power Administration, which owns and operates the regional transmission substation the town depends on entirely, per the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council.
Because there is no secondary feed, routine maintenance on that BPA substation requires a scheduled townwide shutdown to prevent catastrophic failure, per the same account of the outage's cause. Without the maintenance, the substation risks that catastrophic failure, and any resulting unplanned outage could last an undetermined amount of time, the News Tribune reported. Steilacoom has been working since 2021 to build an alternate interconnection with Tacoma Power, an infrastructure project detailed by the Town of Steilacoom that would let the town temporarily reroute power during future maintenance or an unplanned emergency.
Businesses Improvise, One Coffee Shop Thrives
Most restaurants and stores in town simply closed for the two days. But Roundabout Espresso, at 1203 Rainier St., stayed open by running a commercial generator that powered its lights, refrigeration, coffee and espresso machines, fans, air conditioner, and oven, the paper reported. Owner Joe Brown told the News Tribune the shop provided black coffee throughout the outage, and business was busier Thursday than it had been on the Fourth of July. Mayor Elizabeth Grasher had emailed Roundabout Espresso's owners, Joe and Deanna Brown, ahead of time about the planned outage.
The Steilacoom Community Center served as a support hub during the blackout, kept running on backup power while Mayor Grasher held her regularly scheduled public office hours at the Public Works Building instead, according to a Town of Steilacoom update. Even so, the center had electricity but no Wi-Fi, and few people actually showed up, service coordinator Kristal Gibelyou told the News Tribune.
Families and a Canceled Ferry Feel the Squeeze
For families relying on internet access, the outage created real headaches. Kelsey Stephenson, who attends virtual school, had two essays due Thursday night and six or seven modules due within the next 24 hours, the News Tribune reported. Stephenson's stove also did not work during the outage. Samantha Shaw-Ferry, who has three children aged 9, 6, and 3, said she learned about the outage through Facebook and an apartment-complex email; her daughter compared the whole experience to camping, according to the same report.
The town's ferry system also felt the disruption. The 11:30 a.m. run to Ketron Island was canceled both Thursday and Friday, communications specialist Danielle Winski told the News Tribune. The Steilacoom ferry terminal itself was not impacted by the power outage, since its loading ramps run on a backup generator, but the Ketron Island loading ramp lacks a backup generator of its own, which forced the cancellation. Steilacoom's ferry dock also serves as the mainland gateway for Anderson Island, where residents lean on the terminal for basic supplies after the island's only general store and gas station closed permanently in February, as Hoodline previously reported.
The ferry route is served by two vessels, the M/V Steilacoom II, which carries up to 55 vehicles and 300 passengers, and the M/V Christine Anderson, which carries up to 54 vehicles and 600 passengers, according to FerryHost. Riders reaching the terminal by land can also use Pierce Transit's Route 212, which connects the ferry dock to Pierce College in Lakewood.
A Long-Term Fix Still in the Works
Town officials say the two-day shutdown is meant to be a temporary fix rather than a permanent condition. Steilacoom is working with the Bonneville Power Administration and Tacoma Power to design a new connection that would let the town use Tacoma Power temporarily during an unplanned outage or future maintenance, the News Tribune reported. Until that project is complete, the town's roughly 6,686 residents, per U.S. Census Bureau estimates cited by the U.S. Census Bureau, will remain dependent on a single point of failure for their electricity. Emergency management partners, including the Steilacoom Public Safety Department, West Pierce Fire and Rescue, and South Sound 911, were pre-notified ahead of the outage to keep dispatch and emergency response running smoothly, according to the town's update.
The blackout is an unusual disruption for a town best known for its history. Incorporated in 1854, Steilacoom is Washington's oldest incorporated town and includes a National Historic District with 32 sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places, according to World Atlas. For now, residents like the Stephensons and Shaw-Ferrys are back online, businesses have reopened, and the Ketron Island ferry run has resumed, at least until the next scheduled maintenance cycle arrives in a few years.
