SEQUIM – During the hottest hour of the hottest day of the year so far, about 2,800 Clallam County Public Utility District No. 1 customers in Sequim lost power to their air conditioning Wednesday afternoon.
Power was out at 3:10 p.m. and stayed off for more than an hour after the Sequim substation had an internal malfunction.
“We had a differential trip on a substation in Sequim, and that’s not good,” said Dave Proebstel, chief engineer with the utility.
“What we thought could be solved in a matter of minutes means there’s a problem inside the substation.”
Power was routed to Sequim’s large businesses on the west end of Washington Street by way of other substations, which took about an hour.
As the large businesses were being re-energized at 4:10 p.m., workers found the problem within the Sequim substation.
They re-energized the rest of the area’s customers by 4:40 p.m.
The outage affected the customers on the west side of Sequim around the Wal-Mart and Costco Wholesale stores, then along Washington Street to Fifth Avenue.
On the south side of Washington Street power was out as far east as Sequim Avenue.
The Happy Valley neighborhood was also dark.
