Power to half of Port Townsend is being rerouted today, Thursday, through the Hastings substation after a regulator on the Kearney Street substation failed around around 10 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10.

It took three and a half hours to restore power because the Hastings substation had been down for maintenance and it took time to bring it back on line, according to Jim Parker, Jefferson County Public Utility District 1 manager.

Parker said Thursday morning that it could take a week to fix the Kearny Street substation and bring in a crane to install a new $250,000 regulator. The regulator controls the voltage, he said.

“It's a huge piece of equipment so they have to move it out and the other one in,” Parker said of the regulator.

The Hastings substation is actually along Sheridan Street near the four-way intersection with 19th and Discovery Road, not along Hastings Avenue, but is known as the Hastings substation.

Parker said the Hastings substation should be strong enough to carry the load in Port Townsend so long as temperatures don't suddenly plunge; a relative September warm spell is forecast through the weekend.

Some of the power to Port Townsend had already been diverted through a substation near Irondale so Jefferson Healthcare Hospital and power throughout Port Townsend's Castle Hill area was not impacted Wednesday night, Parker said.

“It's something we were planning to replace,” Parker said of the Kearney Street regulator, so the part is available here. “There's still a lot of stuff we have to repair,” he added.

Parker explained that because the Hastings substation was offline for upgrades, it took time to warm the substation back up in order to transfer the load through it.

Power went out around 10 p.m., Sept. 10 and was fully restored around 2 a.m., Sept. 11. Parker was not sure how many customers were impacted.

(The Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader reached out to PUD staff Wednesday night; no one responded until about 10 a.m. Thursday).