Olympia power outage affects over 1,400 residents after heavy rain
Scattered power outages affected Thurston County residents Tuesday morning after a night of heavy rain and wind gusts.
One large outage affected about 1,462 customers in and around the Northwest Olympia and Burbank neighborhoods, according to the Puget Sound Energy outage map. The outage started at about 4:19 a.m. and its cause is under investigation.
The outage area shrunk to about 1,052 customers after 8 a.m. Tuesday. PSE estimates crews will restore power by 10:30 a.m.
On Monday, PSE warned that storms may cause power outages across the region. Trees, flush with leaves, are more likely to topple due to gusty winds, the agency shared. Toppled trees can damage power equipment, and stray branches can hit power lines. PSE said it can take at least 24 hours after a weather event has stopped for crews to provide an initial estimated restoration time.
An outage also affected about 72 customers in a large area between the Nisqually River and Clear Lake in southeast Thurston County, per the outage map. PSE indicates trees or vegetation caused the outage at about 4:36 a.m. Tuesday.
The Olympia area got about 1.27 inches of rain Monday, according to the National Weather Service in Seattle. The high reached 58 degrees, and the overnight low fell to 49 degrees.
Rain and thunderstorms remain in the forecast through the late afternoon Tuesday. The high is expected to top out at 59 degrees and temperatures will drop to 46 degrees overnight.
However, sunny days are forecast for the rest of the week. High temperatures are expected to rise to 85 degrees come Saturday and even 94 degrees by Monday, per the forecast.
