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:

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.