What does a Washington windstorm do to the power grid?
It takes down trees, and the trees take down the lines. Western Washington's grid runs largely overhead through some of the densest tree cover of any metro in the country, and from November through January the ground is saturated enough that a 60 mph gust can uproot a healthy 80-foot fir. The November 19, 2024 bomb cyclone is the reference case: The Seattle Times reported more than half a million customers without power the first night, and the state Office of the Insurance Commissioner put the final count at some 640,000 people, with gusts of 74 mph in the lowlands. Seattle City Light called it its largest outage since 2006, with 114,000 customers out at the peak, and the hardest-hit neighborhoods, Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, and Burien, waited into the weekend.
That storm was unusual in scale. It was not unusual in kind. Smaller windstorms in March and June 2026 each took out tens of thousands of customers for a night, and a Seattle windstorm that never makes the national news still means a dark house for someone. The pattern is the same every year: a Puget Sound windstorm is a power outage with a weather event attached.
How long does a power outage last?
Most last a few hours. The ones worth preparing for last two to five days.
Utilities restore power in order of scale: transmission lines and substations first, then the feeders that serve thousands of homes, then the individual lines that serve a street. If your outage is a tree on a main feeder, you are back the same night. If it is a tree on the single line to your cul-de-sac, you are near the end of the queue, and in a big storm that queue runs for days. Rural and heavily wooded areas east of Lake Washington, in the Cascade foothills, and on the Kitsap Peninsula are last on the list every time, because there are more trees per customer.
Plan for 72 hours. It covers the bad storm without turning your garage into a bunker.
How to prepare for a power outage: the 20-step checklist
This power outage checklist is built for a western Washington winter, where the outage arrives with wind and rain rather than snow. Do the outdoor steps in October, before the ground is saturated. The rest takes one weekend afternoon.
Phase 1: the trees and the yard (steps 1 to 4)
Trees cause the outage. Your trees decide whether the outage also comes with a roof repair.
1. Have leaning or dying trees evaluated
A tree that leans toward the house, has dead limbs in the crown, or shows fungus at the base is the one that comes down in November. An arborist can tell you whether it needs removal, cabling, or just a thinning. Get this done before the fall rain, because saturated ground is what turns a leaning tree into a fallen one.
2. Cut branches back from the roof and the service line
Anything overhanging the roofline becomes a projectile in a windstorm. The line from the pole to your house is your responsibility to keep clear in most service territories, and a branch on it is the most common cause of a single-house outage. Never trim near a line yourself. Call the utility.
3. Secure or store what the wind will take
Patio furniture, trampolines, umbrellas, empty planters, and the recycling bin end up in the neighbor's yard or through a window. Stow them by the first of November and stop putting them back out.
4. Clear the gutters and the drains
A power outage in a windstorm arrives with three inches of rain. Clogged gutters overflow against the house, and a sump pump with no power is not pumping. If your crawl space depends on a pump, this step and step 15 are the same problem.
Phase 2: know your utility (steps 5 to 7)
Western Washington has a patchwork of utilities, and during a storm each one runs its own outage map, its own app, and its own restoration queue.
5. Know who your utility is
Puget Sound Energy serves most of the Eastside, south King County, and Kitsap. Seattle City Light serves Seattle, Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, and parts of Burien and Tukwila. Snohomish County PUD serves Everett, Lynnwood, and the county. Tacoma Power serves Tacoma. Smaller PUDs and co-ops serve the rest. Your bill tells you. Your neighbor across a city line may have a different one, which is why their lights come back and yours do not.
6. Download the outage app and save the outage number
During a storm the app is how you report an outage, see the estimated restoration time, and find out whether your street is even on the list yet. Save the outage line in your phone too, because the app needs data and cell towers lose power as well.
7. Sign up for alerts
Utilities and the National Weather Service both push wind warnings a day ahead. A High Wind Warning for the Puget Sound lowlands is your cue to repeat steps 3 and 11: stow what is loose and charge everything.
Phase 3: build the kit (steps 8 to 13)
Three days of supplies, in one place, that you do not raid for camping trips.
8. Water
One gallon per person per day, three days. If you are on a well, the pump stops with the power and this is your only water. If you are on city water, the supply usually continues, but fill a few jugs anyway.
9. Food you can eat without cooking
Three days of shelf-stable food and a manual can opener. A camp stove is fine outdoors. It is not fine on the kitchen counter.
10. Light
A flashlight or headlamp per person and a large battery lantern for the main room, with spare batteries. Puget Sound Energy's storm guidance says flashlights, not candles, and so does every fire department, because the November house fire that starts with a candle on a bookshelf is a fixture of storm season.
11. Charging
A power bank per phone, charged, and a car charger. A larger portable power station, the kind that runs a CPAP or a fridge for a night, is the single most useful outage purchase for a household that does not want a generator.
12. A radio
Battery or hand-crank, for when the cell network is congested or down. Local stations carry restoration updates and road closures.
13. Carbon monoxide detectors with battery backup
On every level, per Ready.gov. If yours are wired into the house with no battery, they are off during the outage, which is precisely when a neighbor's generator or your own space heater could put carbon monoxide into the house. This is the one step on this list that can save a life.
Phase 4: the house systems (steps 14 to 17)
The house you live in every day has a set of dependencies you have never had to think about. An outage exposes all of them at once.
14. Learn what in your house works without power
A gas furnace has an electric blower and controls: no power, no heat. A heat pump: no power, no heat. A gas water heater with a standing pilot keeps making hot water; a tankless one does not. A gas range lights with a match. A gas fireplace with a standing pilot and a millivolt valve usually works; one with electronic ignition does not, unless it has a battery backup. Walk the house and test each one. Write it on the inside of a cabinet door.
15. Know your water and sewer dependencies
Well pump, sewage ejector pump, sump pump, and some septic systems all need electricity. If you have any of them, a portable power station or generator moves from a convenience to a requirement, and you should know which circuit each one is on.
16. Find the garage door manual release
The red cord hanging from the opener track. Pull it and the door lifts by hand. Try it once before you need it, because a stuck car in a closed garage during a five-day outage is a common and entirely avoidable problem.
17. Decide on a generator, and set it up right
A portable generator with an interlock kit or transfer switch, installed by an electrician, powers the furnace blower, the fridge, and a few circuits. It never runs indoors, in the garage, or within 20 feet of a window or door. Ready.gov's generator guidance is unambiguous on the distance. Keep fuel stored outside the house, run it monthly, and if you go without one, the portable power station in step 11 covers the essentials for a night or two.
Phase 5: during and after the outage (steps 18 to 20)
18. When the power goes out
Keep the fridge and freezer closed. A closed refrigerator holds temperature for about four hours and a full freezer for about 48, according to Ready.gov. Unplug electronics and turn off the range, because power often returns with a surge. Leave one light switched on so you know when it is back. Report the outage. Stay away from any downed line: Puget Sound Energy says at least 35 feet, because a downed line can be live and the ground around it energized.
19. Stay warm the safe way
The section below covers this in full. The short version: layer, close off one room, and never bring a fuel-burning device inside.
20. When the power comes back
Check the fridge thermometer. Food that has been above 40 degrees for more than two hours goes in the trash, per Ready.gov. Refrigerated medication that sat for more than a day needs a call to the pharmacy. Walk the property in daylight and photograph any damage before you clean it up, because the photos are the insurance claim.
How do you stay warm during a power outage?
Trap heat in one room, layer up, and accept a cold house rather than a dangerous one.
Close the doors to one room, ideally a small one with few windows on the south side of the house. Hang blankets over the windows at night and open the curtains during the day. Everyone sleeps in that room. A house that started at 68 degrees will hold above 50 for a day or two in a typical Puget Sound November, because outside temperatures sit in the 40s, not the teens. This is the advantage of a western Washington outage over a Midwestern one: the cold is survivable without heat, as long as you do not do anything stupid to fix it.
What counts as stupid: a propane patio heater in the living room, a charcoal grill in the garage, a gas oven left open for heat, a generator on the covered porch. Every one of these produces carbon monoxide. Ready.gov's power outage guidance names generators, camp stoves, charcoal grills, and gas ovens as the sources to keep out of the house, and a propane patio heater belongs on the same list. A gas fireplace with a standing pilot is fine, because it vents. A wood stove is fine. A kerosene heater rated for indoor use is fine with a window cracked. Nothing else that burns fuel comes inside.
If the house drops below 40 degrees or someone in it is elderly, an infant, or medically vulnerable, go to a warming center or a friend's house with power. Counties open warming centers during major outages and post them on their emergency management pages.
What do you do during a power outage at night?
Light the room you are in, not the house. Stop opening the fridge. Keep phones on low power mode and charge them from the car in the morning, not overnight.
The first night is when most of the mistakes happen: the candle on the nightstand, the space heater run off an extension cord to the neighbor's generator, the trip down dark stairs. Put a headlamp on every pillow and a lantern in the bathroom before the storm arrives, and the night takes care of itself.
Does homeowners insurance cover wind damage?
Yes, in almost every standard Washington policy, and the state Office of the Insurance Commissioner says to think before you file.
Windstorm is a named peril on a standard homeowners policy, which means a tree through the roof or siding stripped by a gust is covered, minus your deductible. After the November 2024 storm, the Washington Office of the Insurance Commissioner published guidance that is worth reading before you call: protect the property from further damage first, then call, and you can ask whether a loss is covered without filing a claim. A filed claim that gets denied still goes on your claims history and can raise your premium. For a damaged fence or a small repair near your deductible, the OIC's staff suggested weighing whether the claim is worth it. Most policies require filing within 60 days of the event.
A neighbor's tree that falls on your house is your policy's claim, not theirs, unless you can show they knew the tree was hazardous and ignored it. Spoiled food is covered under some policies, usually with a low cap. Ask.
What to know if you are buying
Outage frequency is a property characteristic, and nobody is required to tell you about it.
Ask the neighbors. How often does the power go out here, and how long does it take to come back? A street at the end of a long rural feeder in Woodinville or on the Kitsap side has a different answer than a condo in Belltown, and the difference is measured in days per year. Our guide to questions to ask neighbors before buying puts this one on the list.
Look up at the trees. Mature firs over the roof, a neighbor's leaning cedar, a wooded lot on a slope: all of it is beautiful and all of it is a windstorm variable. Ask the inspector about tree proximity and have an arborist look at anything that leans. Our guide to questions to ask when touring a house covers what to look for on the walkthrough.
Check what the house has. A transfer switch or interlock, a wired generator, a wood stove, a standing-pilot fireplace, a battery-backed sump pump. None of it shows up in the listing photos and all of it changes your first winter. A seller who installed a generator interlock has told you something about the street.
Read Form 17. The seller disclosure asks about trees, drainage, and any damage from storms or flooding. A "yes" is a question to ask, not a reason to walk.
What to know if you are selling
A house that handles an outage well is a selling point, and undisclosed storm damage is not the kind of thing that stays undisclosed.
Disclose the damage you repaired. If a tree came through the fence in 2024 and you fixed it, Form 17 asks, and the answer is yes with a note about the repair. A documented repair is a strength. A discovered one is a renegotiation.
Show the systems. Generator interlock, portable power station, battery-backed sump pump, wood stove: list them in the marketing remarks and leave the generator manual on the counter. Buyers touring in November notice.
Handle the trees before listing. A leaning tree over the roof is the first thing a buyer's inspector will flag and the first thing their agent will ask for a credit on. An arborist visit before you list costs less than the credit. It belongs on your home selling checklist with the other pre-listing repairs.
Frequently asked questions
Why fill the bathtub with water during a power outage?
For flushing toilets and washing, not drinking, in a house on a well or a pumped sewer system. A tub holds 40 to 60 gallons, enough to flush by pouring a bucket into the bowl for several days. If you are on city water and gravity sewer, you do not need to.
Will my gas fireplace work in a power outage?
If it has a standing pilot light and a millivolt gas valve, yes, and it may be your best heat source. If it has electronic ignition and no battery backup, no. The blower fan will not run either way, so the room warms by radiant heat only.
Do toilets and showers work during a power outage?
On city water and gravity sewer, yes. Water pressure comes from the utility, not your house. On a well, a sewage ejector pump, or a tankless water heater, no, or only until the pressure tank empties. Know which one you have before the storm.
Do solar panels work during a power outage?
Not by themselves. A standard grid-tied solar system shuts off when the grid goes down, to protect the crews working on the lines. Panels only power the house during an outage if they are paired with a battery and a transfer switch designed for it.
Getting ready before the first storm
An outage in western Washington is not a disaster. It is a predictable November event that becomes a disaster only when the house was never set up for it. Twenty steps, most of them done once, and the next one is an inconvenience.
At Every Door Real Estate, we help buyers look past the listing photos to how a house lives through a Puget Sound winter, and we help sellers present the systems that make a house easy to own. If you are buying or selling anywhere in the region, talk with our team.
This article offers general preparedness guidance. Follow your utility's and local emergency management's instructions during a storm, and confirm insurance coverage with your own policy and agent.
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