‘Small animal’ caused power outage in west Olympia, PSE says

A “small animal” caused an outage that left nearly 5,700 customers on Olympia’s west side without power Tuesday evening, a spokesperson with Puget Sound Energy told The Olympian.

An animal “got into the switch” and caused a substation outage that impacted 5,672 customers, according to the spokesperson. As of Wednesday afternoon, the spokesperson said PSE had not identified what kind of animal it was that caused the outage.

The outage area, which included Capital Mall, stretched from Division Street Northwest to Kaiser Road Northwest and from U.S. Highway 101 north to 28th Avenue Northwest.

Power went out around 7 p.m. Tuesday and was restored to all impacted customers Tuesday night, according to the PSE spokesperson.

This story was originally published August 28, 2019 at 9:50 AM.

Sara Gentzler

The Olympian

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Sara Gentzler joined The Olympian in June 2019 as a county and courts reporter. She now covers Washington state government for The Olympian, The News Tribune, The Bellingham Herald, and Tri-City Herald. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Creighton University.