By reporter Steve Smalley

Explosions and bright flashes of light punctuated the night sky yesterday as a tree or tree limbs came crashing onto power lines causing a 6-hour outage, according to neighbors on the north end of Magnolia.

Just before 9p.m., residents near the corner of 40th Avenue West and West Cramer Street heard two loud bangs and saw blue flashes of light outside. Apparently, branches had fallen down, taking out sections of electrical cables,  plunging the area into darkness.

Power crews warned the curious to stay away from the area and some were not allowed to drive out of the neighborhood for a brief time.

Workers managed to restore power in a speedy six hours from the time power was cut off. Neighbors expressed their appreciation for the quick service.

The morning hours found large electrical lines wrapped in yellow caution tape still hanging low near the street.

Reader Dan emailed this shortly after 9pm:

Two huge transformer explosions on Magnolia overlooking the ship canal just now…explosions with bright blue light flashes and showering red sparks, fire is out. 39th and west cramer.  Power is out locally.

Thanks for the tip and photo, Dan!

Stay tuned for updates

We now know what caused last night’s power outages in Magnolia and Queen Anne. Roberto Bonaccorso from Seattle City Light  says:

What we (City Light) know at this point is that a planned repair in an underground vault near the Seattle Center was completed on schedule early Saturday morning. In order to prepare a test of the repair, power for the Center was diverted to an alternate feeder (a feeder is a big line that transmits power to large areas of the city).

At that point, a junction box failed on the alternate feeder. Power was switched to a second alternate feeder in order to identify what repairs needed to be made. On Sunday, we had a failure on this second alternate feeder at another location.

Crews were sent out to isolate the problem and our switching operators were able to restore power to customers using multiple feeders. Meanwhile repairs are ongoing to the original junction box and failed cable.

At this time power has been restored to all affected by last night’s outages in Magnolia and Queen Anne but according to Bonaccorso there is no estimate for the completion of the original repairs

10:00 p.m. UPDATE: The power is back on for everyone in Magnolia.

A power outage this evening left many Magnolia residents in the dark and cold.  Seattle City LIght says that 3,597 homes and businesses are without power.  The outage stretches from the Ship Canal to Fort Lawton. That means lots of flashlights and blankets on this chilly evening.

Many streets on Magnolia’s east slope lost power in the outage that started at 5:51p.m.  City Light says it was caused by a tree that went down in the area of Nickerson and Emerson.  At this point they are telling customers they hope to have the power back on around 11:30pm tonight.

We took a quick trip in the area and found drivers carefully navigating without traffic lights. 

Fishermen’s Terminal has no power and Chinooks and the Wild Salmon were both closed. 

Wild Salmon owner Paula Cassidy was at the store putting all the fresh fish on ice in the cooler for the night.

With temperatures expected to hit record lows tonight, we saw many people heading out of their powerless homes to wait it out somewhere warm.