Why did nearly 3,000 Puyallup residents lose power Sunday? Here’s what we found out
One rat caused nearly 3,000 residents to lose power Sunday in Puyallup, according to Puget Sound Energy.
The outage started about 2:30 p.m. when the rat got into a piece of equipment called a switch can and did damage, a PSE spokesperson told The News Tribune Monday.
The outage affected more than 2,800 residents in the area of Good Samaritan Hospital, but the hospital itself didn’t lose power, the spokesperson said, because the facility has backups.
All but 123 residents had power again in two or three hours, according to PSE. The rest had their power restored about 7:20 p.m. Sunday.
The outage appeared to affect traffic signals nearby on Meridian Avenue, one of which was out near the ramps to state Route 512 in the evening.
The outage had a “Gig Harbor” label in PSE’s outage map online, which the spokesperson confirmed was a glitch.
