More than 3,000 customers of the Jefferson County Public Utility District lost power over the course of several hours on Saturday, March 1.

“It was quite the weekend, that’s for sure,” said Jameson Hawn, digital communications specialist of PUD.

The first sign of any issue was Friday, Feb. 28, at approximately 7 p.m. That was an outage the affected many customers on the upper Quimper who experienced the “hard blink in power we experienced,” said Hawn. The outage on March 1 started at 7:05 a.m. and lasted, “for a handful of customers,” until 7:20 p.m. that Saturday.

“Many customers were re-energized by about 11:30 a.m., and a second group by 4:45 p.m.,” Hawn said. “Early Saturday, at the peak, we had 3,198 customers out, from Port Townsend to Cape George.”

Hawn reported that customers along Hastings Avenue were the last to be re-energized.

“This was due partly to the load on aging components, and partly because of the proximity to the Hastings substation,” said Hawn. That happened when a  substation “was taken offline late Friday evening, due to the three-phase regulator failing. The power load from this substation was distributed to the surrounding substations, allowing crews to safely plan and replace the regulator.”

In addressing the Hastings regulator as a starting point for the weekend outages, Hawn offered the context that the regulator that showed issues on Feb. 28, was manufactured in 1969, and has been “carefully maintained” by the PUD’s substation team since 2013.

“They literally don’t make them like that anymore,” Hawn said. “Replacement meant removal of the single, three-phase regulator, and replacing it with three new regulators.”

Hawn added, “Removing load from the Hastings substation, and placing it on the surrounding subs, was well within the substation capabilities. However, heavy load in the morning — when homes are heating up, and coffee pots and toasters are going — led to strain on in-field equipment, and the outage we experienced.”

Although the PUD has not yet been able to tally the total hours it spent on restoration efforts, Hawn noted the spread of time involved in addressing the issue.

The on-call team was on site Friday evening for the regulator at Hastings, along with the substation chief and dispatch. “Saturday, we had all two full crews working the outage, along with substation and dispatch staff,” Hawn said. “Sunday, for the regulator changeout, we had two full crews, our substation team and dispatch. The substation work on Sunday required a 60-ton crane crew as well. Crews ended up pulling long days to ensure everything was back up and running safely.”

Hawn elaborated that the components that failed “would show little to no outward appearance” of having an issue ahead of time. However, once they failed, additional safety devices were triggered to “protect our substation components, which led to a larger outage,” Hawn said. “Technically, everything was in good shape on the substation and distribution side to handle the shift in energy load, but the slight increase did lead to some aging components failing.”

Responding to reports of a “flash of light,” Hawn suggested it was “most likely” a cutout protection device, since “transformers that feed power to our homes feature a cutout, which acts like a fuse,” and with “too much load, the fuse opens.”

He added, “Sometimes this creates a brilliant green or blue flash. The cutout costs only a few dollars to replace, and is vital to protecting the nearby transformer, which can cost thousands.”

Hawn explained the PUD’s general manager and board have worked on a four-year infrastructure plan, outlining needs for Jefferson County.

“When we acquired our grid from Puget Sound Energy in 2013, we purchased an aging infrastructure,” Hawn said. “Our team is constantly working to ensure it stays reliable and meets future demand. We really appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding during outages. Please know that our team works tirelessly to re-energize our neighbors as quickly as possible.”