Leaning utility pole on NW 59th St shuts down traffic overnight

Update: Seattle City Light crews were out this morning installing a new pole, and had it nearly in place at 10am.

City Light worker Jason Winker said the fallen pole was installed in 1988. “This one got old, and just decided to fall over,” he said. Apparently it’s pretty common — some of the poles around Ballard are 50 to 60 years old. The fallen pole was actually scheduled to be replaced, as the base was showing signs of rot.

Crews should be wrapping up soon — they were in the process of reinstalling the transformer when My Ballard stopped by.

Original: A fallen utility pole at midnight last night shut down traffic on NW 59th St near 26th Ave NW.

Lauri Miller reported the fallen pole in the My Ballard Group, adding that the “seriously leaning” pole had wires hanging near the street.

This morning at around 6am, Susan Faith Dyer posted the above photo of crews working to fix the problem, saying no vehicles were damaged in the incident.

The Seattle City Light outages map at showed at least two buildings that were still without power on NW 59th St at 8am.