'Most, if not all' customers will have power back by Tuesday, PSE says

Puget Sound Energy expects to fully restore power to "most, if not all” customers by in the Seattle area by Tuesday, a spokesperson told KUOW.

For some, that’s a week after high winds and falling trees knocked out service for hundreds of thousands of customers last week. As of Tuesday morning, power had been restored to all but about 2,000 customers.

On Monday afternoon, in parts of the East Renton Highlands, you couldn't walk down the street without hearing a generator — Mandi Mortensen’s, for instance. As of Monday afternoon, she’d been running her generator for six days.

Mortensen’s boyfriend works for Puget Sound Energy, and she knew the crews were working hard to get power back for everyone. But she hadn't slept more than three hours since the storm.

"If the generator runs out of gas, and we have the fireplace on and the fan doesn't do it, the house will build up with carbon monoxide," Mortensen said. "And then, what if the [generator] runs out of gas and I can't get it started again?"

Mortensen has a 16-year-old son whose school, Liberty High, reopened its doors Monday but didn't have heat or wi-fi, she said. If power didn't come back by Tuesday afternoon, she'd have to cancel Thanksgiving, Mortensen added.

"Today was a meltdown kind of a morning," she said, standing outside her garage barefooted.

But a couple hours later, Mortensen told KUOW her power was finally restored and her Thanksgiving plans were still on. (Power is also back at Liberty High, according to the school’s website.)

Mortensen said she was looking forward to finally getting a good night’s sleep.