Many residents of Seattle lost power from Monday evening into the early morning of Tuesday, Feb. 25, caused by a storm that rolled high winds, thunder, and rain into Washington. At its highest point, winds averaged over 22 miles per hour at Seatac, with gusts up to 52 miles per hour. According to Puget Sound Energy, over 200,000 people in western Washington lost power due to the storm.
Seattle Pacific University experienced a power outage that saw many of the university’s buildings and residence halls lose power.
Some students noticed the power outage right away. Dante Montoya, a first year majoring in applied human biology, was awake at the time the power went out.
“I was in the kitchen [in Ashton Hall] around 2:30 a.m. to 2:45 a.m. just doing some homework. Was about to go to bed when I heard a big splurge,” Montoya said. “It was in repetitions of three when this happened.”
According to Bethany Davis, the assistant vice president of Facility & Project Management, Queen Anne experienced multiple power outages that morning, some of which affected Seattle Pacific’s campus.
“[Seattle City Light] had four different large outages on Queen Anne Hill. So different parts of campus were part of different outage events,” Davis said. “All of them were caused by trees falling on to what they call feeders, which are the main power lines that come off of substations.”
When Montoya experienced the outage that morning, he saw Fremont also lost power at the same time as SPU.
“There [was] this blue light outside, [and] I was like, What? I went outside to check it out and the lights flickered and it went dark for a good ten seconds,” Montoya said. “There was a section of Fremont [that was] completely black. All the power went out and that little section on the hill.”
Soon after the outages, a statement was released to students and faculty by the SPU Alert System at 5:42 a.m. announcing the closure of the Art Center, the Royal Brougham, Otto Miller Hall, McKinley Hall, the Cremona Classrooms, Beegle Hall, Crawford Hall and other buildings on campus.
“Any classes scheduled in these buildings will be relocated,” the SPU Alert System said.
According to Tracy Norlen, the director of public information, the university was expecting a possible power outage to occur due to the weather.
“Cheryl [Logsdon, the director of the Office of Safety and Security] and others were talking the night before about the high wind warning and monitoring it,” Norlen said.
At 8:56 a.m., the SPU Alert System sent out another email, stating the return of power to most facilities and halls on campus.
“Campus power has been restored in most buildings,” the SPU Alert System said. “However, Ashton Hall (on generator, let-ins on first floor to access the building), the Office of Safety & Security, 650 W. Bertona, and 605 W. Bertona remain without power.”
A sign was posted on the doors of Ashton Hall telling residences to call the Office of Safety and Security if they couldn’t get in. According to Davis, some buildings did not get power restored as quickly as others because of the different outages affecting the campus.
“There were three different restoration times, because we were part of multiple outages. The power was restored to the majority of campus spaces that were impacted a little bit before 7 a.m. and then there were a couple more buildings that got power shortly after that,” Davis said. “And then there were four buildings that didn’t have power restored until around 12:30 p.m. to 12:45 p.m., and most notably of those four would be Ashton.”
