Nearly 9,000 customers in Ocean Shores, Oyehut, Ocean City and North Beach up to Copalis experienced a power outage over their morning coffee on Sunday.
Just as many were preparing to settle in to watch the Washington Commanders take on the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship game at home or their favorite sports bar or restaurant via the internet, cable TV or satellite, a pop or a click was followed by darkness.
The outage was first reported at 9:30 a.m. Many calls to Grays Harbor PUD were met with busy signals while dozens of people posted status updates to social media, many asking about the extent of the outage. Grays Harbor PUD’s website was quickly updated, and residents and businesses throughout the area soon realized how widespread the issue was.
According to Grays Harbor PUD, an equipment failure due to ice led to a transmission line going down.
“Crews were able to restore North Beach, Oyehut and downtown Ocean Shores and isolate the outage to the residential areas while making repairs,” Ian Cope, Grays Harbor PUD community and government relations director, said via email. “Once the line was back-up, they used a gradual restoration practice called ‘cold load.’ In a nutshell, if equipment has been sitting cold, reenergizing all it once can cause the breakers to open again. Gradual restoration heats it up slowly and eases it back into full power.”
Of late, area residents have been waking up to frozen windshields and icy roads. Reported overnight lows have been at or below freezing. The forecast for the coming week calls for more of the same.
Power was fully restored to a total of 8,590 customers at 2:25 p.m. on Sunday, just in time to watch the Eagles finish off the Commanders and advance to the Super Bowl.