Power outage impacts Burger King area

By Grace McCarthy

A power outage impacted about 60 residents in Blaine on September 24, highlighting issues with the city’s aging infrastructure. 

An underground cable failed in the right-of-way alley behind Burger King around 7:45 p.m. September 24, said Gary McSpadden, maintenance and operations manager at Blaine Public Works Department. The outage, which hit parts of Lincoln Park and State Route 543, lasted until 10:30 p.m. for most residents, although a few pockets of residents were without power until the next morning. In total, about 60 residents had their lights turned off. 

The city of Blaine has had five large power outages since the start of 2023 including this outage, four of which have been since the start of July, McSpadden said. All of the power outages this summer were from underground cables. 

“It’s aging infrastructure that we’re coming up with a plan to replace,” McSpadden said. 

Public works is identifying old runs to replace and is trimming trees around power lines. The city has scheduled installing a circuit next year that will create more reliability and switching capabilities in Semiahmoo, McSpadden said. The city is also planning on adding a new circuit that will improve reliability near Burger King. 

The city has experienced other outages but they were from animals and brief as well as localized, McSpadden said.