Hour-long power outage disrupts downtown Seattle

A power outage hit downtown Seattle in the U.S. Pacific Northwest on Wednesday for about an hour, causing traffic gridlock and apparently no more dangers.

The disruption, which started around 11:30 a.m. local time, was traced to an equipment failure at Massachusetts Street Substation.

Power was mostly back by 12:30 p.m., according to Seattle City Light, a utility serving the biggest city in Washington state.

However, Connie McDougall, of Seattle City Light, was quoted as saying by the Seattle Times that power might still go out briefly for small pockets of the downtown area as "part of the restoration process." Throughout the outage, she said, 12,000 electric meters were affected.

While 911 emergency service was not interrupted, firefighters made 24 elevator rescues.

An earlier report from KOMO radio station said about 60 percent of the traffic signals downtown were affected.

Seattle City Light is still working on an estimated customer count affected and investigating the cause of the outage.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport posted a message on Twitter that flights were operational but some landline phones were down. Endit