EVERETT — Snohomish County’s Public Utility District has released an updated version of its power outage map website just in time for storm season.
The new map displays specific incidents and outages while allowing users to zoom down to house level. Incident tabs show when an outage was reported, the number of customers impacted and where the district is in the process of restoring power.
“Customers have been asking to see their specific outage, not just neighborhood-level information,” said PUD’s Chief Customer Officer John Hoffman, in a Monday press release. “This update ensures our customers will get that clearer, more personalized information during storms.”
The update went live on Oct. 22, just before Saturday’s storm, which, at its peak, left 22,000 PUD customers without power.
The storm hit Snohomish County at roughly 11 p.m., PUD spokesperson Aaron Swaney said on Monday.
After waiting for the winds to die down a bit, 18 PUD crews spent the night restoring customers’ power, getting down to 6,500 outages on Sunday morning, Swaney said. By Monday morning, only a handful of residents were still waiting for the lights to turn back on.
“Our crews are very accustomed to fall and winter storms. They know that this time of year that they’re going to be working overtime, they’re going to be called upon in the middle of the night to go out and work on damage,” Swaney said. “This is not out of the ordinary at all for us.”
He recommends that residents prepare an emergency kit in case storms knock out power or other weather disasters hit. On PUD’s website, it suggests an emergency kit contains one gallon per person per day for several days, for drinking and sanitation, as well as three to five days of non-perishable food and first aid supplies.
To see PUD’s full list of emergency essentials, visit https://www.snopud.com/outages-safety/staying-safe/at-home/emergency-preparedness-kit/.
Eliza Aronson: 425-339-3434; eliza.aronson@heraldnet.com; X: @ElizaAronson.
Eliza’s stories are supported by the Herald’s Environmental and Climate Reporting Fund.
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