OPALCO kept in dark during outage

Nearly five hours after a power outage shut down all of San Juan County Sunday afternoon, the Orcas Power and Light Cooperative (OPALCO) still didn’t know what happened on the mainland, and when power would be restored.

And OPALCO still would not have known what was going on at 6:30 p.m. if Engineer Tom Small hadn’t gotten in his truck and taken the ferry to Anacortes to check out the situation first-hand. It was at that time that Small discovered that a switch at 34th Street in Anacortes failed, causing the outage. Small also learned that the repair work had been virtually completed by the time he arrived on the scene. Power returned to the islands a little after 7 p.m.

It wasn’t for lack of effort that OPALCO was kept in the dark, and General Manager Randy Cornelius is still angry about the fact that the information furnished to him from the mainland throughout the outage continued to be incorrect.

Immediately after the lights went out, OPALCO contacted dispatch at the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal agency that transmits electric power from the mainland to the San Juans. Initially, the Bonneville dispatcher told OPALCO that the power would be back on in 15 minutes. Later, the report said it would be on in 30 minutes. Still later came a report that the outage was caused by a fire at a substation in Anacortes.

Bonneville may not have known what was going on, Cornelius said. Anacortes’ electrical needs are provided by Puget Sound Energy, an investor-owned utility, and it is possible that the utility wasn’t passing along the correct information to Bonneville. Cornelius was on the phone all day Monday to both Puget Sound Energy and Bonneville, trying to establish a procedure by which reliable information will be provided to OPALCO during all future outages caused by problems on the mainland.

Each time OPALCO got a report from Bonneville, the local employees who worked the phones Sunday afternoon passed along the information to concerned islanders, assuming it was correct.

The employees answered calls on OPALCO’s six lines virtually non-stop during the outage, Cornelius said. The number of calls over-extended the phone lines, preventing many islanders from getting through. This prompted Cornelius to note that OPALCO will look at upgrading that portion of its phone system through which staff provide information to the public regarding outages.

Many local businesses and agencies were also frustrated by OPALCO’s inability to furnish them reliable information. Rosario wanted to know if it should bring in pump trucks for its sewer system. Restaurant owners were trying to decide whether they should keep open or shut down for the day. When they were told that the power would be on in a few minutes, the restaurants stayed open, but most closed when the minutes turned into hours.

OPALCO had line crews ready on all three islands in case the problem had to be addressed here in the San Juans.

Thinking back on the effort of the OPALCO employees, Cornelius said, “They did a great job.” Ditto, the islanders. “Everybody showed great patience,” he added.

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