More than 6,000 residential and commercial properties across North Seattle and Shoreline lost power Friday morning, knocking out electricity to school buildings and forcing the Shoreline School District to delay the start of classes by two hours. Utility officials had not identified a cause as of Friday, and the outage remained under investigation.
According to FOX 13 Seattle, more than 6,000 residential and commercial properties in North Seattle lost power Friday morning. KOMO News similarly reported that the outage affected more than 6,000 customers in the area, with Seattle City Light's outage map showing impacted neighborhoods including Olympic Hills and Ridgecrest.
Schools Scramble as Outage Hits Bus Dispatch
The outage reached deep into the Shoreline School District's infrastructure, disrupting operations at the district's transportation dispatch center. FOX 13 Seattle reported that the delay was prompted by the power outage at the district's transportation dispatch center, which temporarily disrupted morning bus operations. Power was also out at Shorecrest, Kellogg, Briarcrest, Ridgecrest and the Central Kitchen/Warehouse, per the same report.
With dispatch and multiple buildings affected, the district placed all of its schools on a two-hour delayed schedule rather than attempt a normal morning start. Under district policy described by the Shoreline School District, when schools are open but starting two hours late, K-12 classes begin two hours late districtwide. The district's emergency procedures also note that an individual school can be closed outright for a building-specific event such as a power outage, even while the rest of the district operates on the delayed schedule.
How Families Were Notified
Shoreline School District policy calls for families and staff to be contacted by email, text message and phone call whenever a delay or cancellation is in effect, the district's emergency procedures state. The district worked around the outage at its transportation hub and several school sites.
As of Friday morning, the cause of the outage had not been identified and remained under investigation, according to FOX 13 Seattle's report. KOMO News reported an estimated restoration time between 11:40 a.m. and noon.
North Seattle Has Seen Big Outages Before
North Seattle and Shoreline have a history of large-scale power disruptions, though the circumstances behind Friday's outage differ from past incidents. Historical material from Seattle City Light describes a weather-related outage in which, at one point, there were about 6,000 customers without power in the North Seattle-Shoreline area. A separate utility post describes power restoration after an outage. That older incident was tied to weather, a cause that has not been established for Friday's outage.
