Failed cable splice leaves 4,700 without power south of downtown Seattle

SEATTLE — A failed splice in an underground cable left 4,700 Seattle City Light customers south of downtown without power Monday, the utility said.

Crews said the failure sparked a fire in an underground electrical vault.

The boundaries of the outage are roughly:

• North: East Columbia Street
• South: South Andover Street
• West: 8th Avenue South
• East: 21st Avenue South

Seattle City Light has a map of the outages available on its site.

The utility said crews received reports of smoke coming from the vault, near 13th Avenue South and South Bayview Street earelir in the afternoon. Crews later observed a little bit of brown smoke coming from the vault. They said it may not have been a full-fledged fire, but a bad connection, which would mean a faster fix.

City Light said it restored power around 6 p.m.

KIRO