What to Do During a Power Outage

When the power goes out, do three things first. Stay away from any downed lines, check whether your neighbors are dark too, and report the outage to your utility. Most Puget Sound outages happen during windstorm season, October through February, and most are restored within a few hours. What you do during those hours matters for your safety, your food, and your electronics. This guide walks through it in order.

The first ten minutes: step by step

1. Check for downed lines. If a line is down on your street, stay far away and keep kids and pets inside. Treat every downed line as live, even if it looks dead and quiet. If a line is touching your house, your fence, or a car, call 911.
2. Look outside. Are streetlights and neighbors dark too? If yes, it is a utility outage and crews will handle it. If your house is the only one out, skip to the next section, because that is a different problem.
3. Report the outage. Seattle City Light and PSE both have outage maps and phone reporting. Report even if you assume a neighbor already did. More reports help crews pinpoint the damaged section faster.
4. Unplug sensitive electronics. Computers, TVs, game consoles, and anything with a circuit board. The danger is often not the outage but the surge when power comes back.
5. Leave one lamp switched on. That is how you know the moment power returns.
6. Keep the fridge and freezer closed. Every door opening costs you cold air you cannot get back.
7. Check on neighbors. Anyone who depends on home medical equipment needs a plan within the first hour, not after dark.

Is the whole street out, or just your house?

This is the most important question in this guide. If the whole block is dark, the failure is on the utility side and your job is to wait safely. If only your house is out, or only half of your house, the problem is likely your service line, your meter base, or your electrical panel. The utility does not repair those. They belong to you, and they need a licensed electrician.

Watch for these signs that the problem is on your side: neighbors have power while you do not, only some circuits are dead, lights browned out or flickered before the failure, or the panel hums or smells hot. Wind can also pull the service mast, the pipe where the overhead line attaches to your roof, partly loose without cutting power completely. That is an urgent electrical problem. Our emergency dispatch team handles exactly these calls, and our emergency triage page helps you sort out what you are dealing with before you pick up the phone.

Generator rules that keep people alive

Portable generators hurt people every storm season, and carbon monoxide is almost always the reason. CPSC guidance is blunt: never run a generator indoors, in a garage, in a carport, or near an open window. Outside only, at least 20 feet from doors, windows, and vents, with the exhaust pointed away from the house. Carbon monoxide has no smell, and a running generator in an attached garage can fill a home in minutes even with the garage door open.

The second rule is just as firm: never backfeed your house. Backfeeding means plugging a generator into a dryer outlet or wall outlet to power the whole home. It pushes electricity back out through your service line, which can kill the line workers repairing your street and can start a fire in your walls. The safe way to connect a generator to your panel is a transfer switch or interlock installed by a licensed electrician. If you are thinking about permanent backup power, our generator installation page covers standby systems, and our guide comparing a generator versus battery backup for PNW storms helps you pick the right approach for your house.

One more habit worth building: keep battery powered carbon monoxide alarms on every floor, and test them at the start of every windstorm season.

How long will your food last?

Standard food safety guidance gives you clear numbers. A closed refrigerator keeps food safe for about 4 hours. A full freezer holds for about 48 hours, and a half full freezer for about 24. The clock only runs that long if the doors stay shut, so decide what you need before you open anything, grab it fast, and close the door.

If the outage looks like it will run long, move milk, meat, and leftovers into a cooler with ice. Do not taste food to test it. If it sat above refrigerator temperature for hours, throw it out. And skip the winter shortcut of putting food on the porch. Outdoor temperatures swing, sun warms containers, and animals find things fast.

Protect your electronics before the power comes back

A lot of outage damage happens at the end, not the beginning. When crews re-energize a line, the first moments can carry voltage swings, and everything in your house restarts at once. That is why you unplug sensitive electronics early and leave one lamp on as your signal.

A whole-home surge protector mounted at your panel is the durable fix. It clamps surges before they reach any circuit, which protects the equipment you cannot practically unplug, like your furnace board, heat pump, and built-in appliances. Power strips only protect what is plugged into them, and cheap ones wear out silently. Our surge protection page explains how panel-mounted protection works and what installation involves.

How do you keep the house warm?

Most Puget Sound homes lose heat slowly in our mild winters, so you have more time than you think. Pick one small room, ideally one with few windows, and make it the warm room. Close every door in the house, roll towels against door gaps, and put everyone in that one room. Layers go on before anyone feels cold, because it is easier to hold warmth than to rebuild it.

The hard rules: never use a gas oven, charcoal grill, or camp stove to heat a room. All of them produce carbon monoxide. During a hard freeze, open the cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls and let a faucet drip so your pipes keep moving water.

Common questions

How long do Puget Sound outages usually last?

Most windstorm outages are restored within a few hours. Major storms can leave some neighborhoods dark for several days, because crews repair the largest lines first and work down to individual streets. The utility outage map gives you the best live estimate for your block.

Can I use my gas fireplace or gas water heater during an outage?

Usually yes. Gas water heaters with a standing pilot keep making hot water with no electricity at all. Many gas fireplaces also run on a standing pilot or a battery backup ignition. Gas furnaces do not run, because their blowers and controls need power.

Why did a breaker trip when the power came back?

Everything in your house tried to restart at the same moment, and the inrush tripped the circuit. Reset it once. If the same breaker trips again, leave it off and have it looked at, because a breaker that will not hold is telling you something.

My lights flicker in every windstorm. Is that normal?

Occasional blinks across the neighborhood are normal. Flickering that only happens in your house, or that comes with buzzing at the panel, points to a loose service connection or a failing panel, and that deserves an inspection before the next storm.

What to do next

Before the next windstorm, spend twenty minutes labeling your panel and learning where every shutoff in your house lives. Our emergency shutoff guide walks your whole family through it. If your house was the only one out, or your panel flickered, buzzed, or smelled hot, do not wait for the next storm to find out why. Call us at (206) 970-1031, where real people answer early and late, every day, or book online and we will get an electrician out to you.