Capitol Hill flanked by power outages on windy night in Seattle

With a windy storm slamming into the city and soggy leaves and branches touching off transformer explosions and knocking down wires, Capitol Hill found itself in a ring of power outages Saturday night.

Seattle City Light reported more than 4,500 customers without power in the Leschi area and another nearly 4,000 in the dark to the north in Montlake and Eastlake as of 9:20 PM. Meanwhile, spots of outages dotted areas of First Hill and Squire Park south of Seattle University in out outage tied to a larger power failure in South Seattle.

A wind advisory has been issued in the area through early Sunday morning with predictions of south wind around 18 mph, with gusts as high as 39 mph. The forecast of 100% chance of rain was also highly accurate.

While the luck of wind and weather patterns rule, CHS has reported on how density and development has shaped the area’s power grid with new apartment buildings requiring work to move utilities below the surface.