Saturday afternoon started off exciting enough: Lots of rain. Lightning and thunder starting around 4:40 PM. Then some hail. LOTS of hail in some places.
This is from Ballard:
Come to Seattle they said, it’s spring they said twitter.com/brucenourish/s…
— Bruce Nourish (@brucenourish) 2013年4月13日
Then the power outage reports started coming in. The first report of lights out came in at 5:53 PM, from Wallyhood:
Power outage along 45th. Traffic signals are dark.
— Wallyhood Seattle (@wallyhood) 2013年4月14日
Lower Wallingford. Then SE Green Lake. Eastlake. Montlake. Ravenna and NE 65th Street. South University District.
When the Seattle City Light Outage Map finally updated, things looked like this:

Screen grab of the Seattle City Lights outage page, taken around 7 PM. Service to Green Lake and Montlake had already been restored, but nearly 15,000 other customers were still affected.
Here’s the Seattle City Light twitter feed, with the details:
Power outage in the UDist affecting about 10,000 customers caused by an equipment failure at Univ. Substation.
— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) 2013年4月14日
Crews are working to restore power in the University District. Initial estimate for full restoration set for 1 a.m.
— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) 2013年4月14日
@wdzimmy Thanks Drew.
— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) 2013年4月14日
Cause of equipment failure at University Substation was a lighting strike. Damage took down the entire substation.
— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) 2013年4月14日
Repair crews are bringing large “feeder” power lines back to service. As neighborhoods are energized, some localized problems could occur.
— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) 2013年4月14日
Here’s a look at the damage where the lightning strike hit at University Substation. twitter.com/SEACityLight/s…
— Seattle City Light (@SEACityLight) 2013年4月14日
And as now (7:30 PM), power is coming back in some of the affected areas.
Quite a day. A good day to be paying attention to Twitter:
@lauralambeth @mcmahonuw @seacitylight Ha ha! Right on. It’s all cats and pictures of food, until the power goes out.
— Ravenna Blog (@RavennaBlog) 2013年4月14日
Oh yeah. And apparently there was a car on fire at the Roosevelt Whole Foods:
Power out, cars are blowing up outside of Whole Foods, and it’s hailing in Seattle. This might be the end of it all, folks…
— Drew Zimmerman (@wdzimmy) April 14, 2013
thank you for the information