SEATTLE — Yet another windstorm brought down power poles in Seattle's SODO neighborhood, leading some people to wonder if there is a trend that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
"You just drive around and look at all the light poles. I mean, they're probably old as I am and a lot of them are splintered," said Todd Biesold of Merlino Foods.
The workers at Merlino Foods had a perfect view of the drama on Monday when a windstorm toppled power poles on Fourth Avenue South. The road was closed for hours as crews worked to repair the poles. Biesold said the sudden outage was at least the third in eight months.
"There's a huge impact on our business," he said, noting the scramble on Monday. "We've got a couple of million dollars worth of perishables in the building that you have to do something with."
Erin Goodman, who leads the SODO BIA, said the pole problems have continued to mount with time. In a high-profile incident almost three years ago to the day, a windstorm knocked down roughly two dozen poles on East Marginal Way. More of them came down, in the same area, in yet another windstorm last fall. Goodman said she's also aware of recent electrical fires on poles, which have endangered nearby buildings.
"When these power poles go out, it blocks traffic. Companies and businesses lose power," said Goodman. "I think we have an infrastructure neglect problem."
Goodman suggests that SODO was built on infill, and the soft soil, when combined with wind and exposure to the elements, are a recipe for problems.
"SODO is the flatlands, so we don't have a lot of the natural wind protections. You see other neighborhoods have hills and trees. So wind goes through this valley really fast and really hard. So we need an extra look at our infrastructure," she said.
Tamara Jenkins, the interim director for Seattle City Light's Asset Management and Large Projects department, said it is difficult to make assumptions about what has led to the series of high-profile and traffic-altering pole problems. She confirmed the latest incident on Monday was wind related and that the poles were inspected in December of 2016.
With 91,000 poles within City Light's jurisdiction, there is a lot of work to do, Jenkins said. There is an approved budgeted $40 million to $50 million for the accelerated pole replacement program, and that "we're taking it very seriously," Jenkins said.
There are about 5,000 poles "in our backlog" that are being tracked for replacement, Jenkins said.
Biesold said he'll continue to count the power outages and problems which only seem to have recently occurred, saying, as far as the poles, "SODO seems to be especially decrepit."