Update: Power being restored after thousands affected by Pierce County outage
Over 34,000 were without power on the Key Peninsula and surrounding areas from a widespread outage caused by a mechanical failure Friday morning.
The widespread outage happened at 9:18 a.m. when a high voltage switch failed during preparation for a scheduled maintenance by Tacoma Public Utilities crews, according to the department on X. The maintenance was supposed to be done on a transmission line that served and crossed the Gig Harbor Peninsula.
Both transmission lines serving all of the substations that Peninsula Light Company operated were failed and faulted, causing the outage, the post said.
“Our crews assessed the situation and immediately began restoration and repairs. We are currently restoring power now to PLC customers as quickly and safely as possible. We will provide more updates as they become available.” the post said.
TPU posted at 11:48 a.m. that they restored transmission service to PenLight.
As of 12:15 p.m., around 1,400 are without power, and that number continues to drop.
“All but a few members remain out at the moment and crews are tending to those outages. A major thank you to our members for your support and patience,” according to PenLight on X.
The outage affected all schools in the Peninsula School District, according to an email sent out by the administration. Classes still continued, the district wrote on Facebook.
This story was originally published April 25, 2025 at 9:39 AM.
