For people who are in San Juan
County tonight, where the entire
area is without power right now,
yeah, right now, we want to bring in
Krista Boucher with orcas power and light.
Krista, thanks for joining us right now.
Can you tell us what is causing
this massive power outage?
Yeah. Thanks for having me tonight.
Umm, yeah, we lost power in San
Juan County around 5:00 PM and this
is we're fed by Puget Sound Energy
that there's equipment that feeds
the whole islands and there's a
fault in some of their equipment.
So Puget Sound Energy is currently responding
and they have identified the issue.
So the last I heard they were in route.
We're expecting another update
from them right around now as to
the extent of the damage.
How long they expect this to take?
So that boy, there's actually gonna be my
next question is how long it was gonna be.
We know there are a number of people.
How many people are impacted by this outage?
Well, we have about 14,000 meters that
are out of power right now. So you know,
however many people are in each household.
So yeah, quite a few people.
And we can't just out in the islands,
we can't just drive to someplace that
does have power where we're pretty
much stuck out here with no power.
So yeah, and we're once we get our
power restored from Puget Sound Energy,
it's still going to take some time
for us to pick the power back up.
We can't restore everybody at once because.
Overload the system.
So we are generally,
we have really good reliability out here,
about 99.98%.
We've done a lot on our local
system to ensure that.
But yeah, when we have these big outages,
we're particularly vulnerable.
Krista. Obviously we are very
concerned about tonight as these
temperatures continue to fall and we
have that freezing rain forecasted.
So what is Puget Sound energy
telling you at this point?
I know you can't give us an exact timetable,
but does this turn?
The weather that we're seeing turn this
into an emergency situation obviously.
And what are they telling you about that?
Yeah, we we haven't heard exactly,
but I was told to expect longer than
four hours from where we're currently at
and that would be best case scenario.
So yeah, we are looking into going
into tonight and we're just hoping
people sort of bunker down and.
And hold tight and we'll we're
gonna keep at them to keep get
them up for power tonight.
Yeah it's it's pretty serious.
What message would you have for
anybody who may be watching VR
KING5 app who may want to hear
exactly what's going on out there?
Yeah, well, we really want to urge
Members to our Co-op members to turn off
their lights and their heating so that
when we do restore power that helps not
have this big surge of power that could,
you know, cause issues on our system are in.
They can turn those off,
maybe keep one light on so you know
when the power comes up.
But until then, yeah,
just turn that off and and know that
we are doing everything we can to
get the power as quickly as we can.
Our our crews and our team are 100% committed
and we understand how serious this is.
Krista, before we let you go tonight,
we know that you're on
your cell phone right now.
Just want to ask how you're doing and
you know what you're doing to stay warm.
Yeah. Well, we have the candles out.
You can see here.
And I actually am having
a little dinner party.
I have a propane stove.
So we're still cooking dinner.
And that's how we're staying warm.
Is is making some good food and hanging
together to try to stay together.
And, and, you know, we're checking.
I'm checking on my neighbors.
I went over and turned on a neighbor's
water so that could be dripping.
And yeah, we're doing good.
OK, Krista, thank you for
your time tonight. Stay warm.
And I'm glad you're doing fine and
you're helping out your neighbors.
And we will ask you for some
updates throughout the night,
but thank you again for your time right now.