ISSAQUAH, Wash. — As temperatures continue to climb in western Washington, some are dealing with power outages.
Thousands of Puget Sound Energy (PSE) and Seattle City Light customers reported outages Sunday into Monday night. As of 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, around 5,550 PSE customers and roughly 250 Seattle City Light customers were without power.
“During these extreme temperatures we ask customers to be very energy conscious. If they do have an air conditioner, we ask them to set that thermostat as high as they comfortably can possibly handle inside,” said PSE spokesperson Andrew Padula in a prerecorded video and posted to social media.
In Issaquah Sunday, power became a problem around 1:30 in the afternoon for Maria Smith.
"The electricity went off, and so it is quickly getting warmer and warmer,” said Smith.
She said the one small air conditioning unit her family does have went down as triple-digit temperatures were going up. In her city, thousands of PSE customers were dealing with the same dilemma.
"We went up the hill to try to get lunch, and all the restaurants don't have power,” said Smith.
Some of her neighbors decided to handle the heat by heading to a local creek.
"Either you have to live really close to it, or come to the park really often to know that it's available," Sarah Kruse explained. "When the power went out, we were like guess where we are going."
Heat can cause underground cables to fail. According to Seattle City Light, a compounding factor is crews must go into underground vaults to repair or replace the failed equipment.
In an email to KING 5, Julie Moore, a Seattle City Light spokesperson explained: “With this extreme heat, we need to balance the speed of restoration with the safety of our crews and limit the amount of time each individual is in one of the underground vaults, which are even warmer than outside.”
As for Smith, her attention is on this record heat wave that continues to unleash new challenges.
"I mean it's already bad enough not having air conditioning, but to have no power at all. And this heat is dangerous,” said Smith.
Puget Sound Energy and Seattle City Light provide outage maps so customers can check on the status of their outage.
Extra crews are working during the heat wave to restore power as quickly and safely as possible, according to Moore.