From the Seattle Post-Globe:
About 4,657 customers lost power at about 6:20 p.m. The cause is unknown and the estimated time of power restoral is undetermined. Affected areas include parts of Rainier Beach, Beacon Hill and Seward Park. The general boundaries of the outage are S. Alaska St. on the North, S. Norfolk St. on the South, Lake Washington on the East and Airport Way S. on the West.
Columbian Way South (and part of South Alaska Street) is closed between Beacon Avenue South and Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, due to a tree that fell and took some power lines with it in the 2500 block at 1:27 am. It’s expected to be closed until at least 8:30 this morning.
(Edited to add: a later story at KIRO has an overhead picture of the fallen tree. Wow, that was a big one!)
Power was out for about 3,000 folks on Beacon Hill and elsewhere in Southeast Seattle, including the VA Hospital. Power has since been restored to all but about 300 City Light customers, and the current expectation is that the power will be fully restored by noon. Here at the BHB, we noticed two power flickers at the time of the outage, but power stayed on in our part of the Hill.
According to City Light, the area now affected is bordered on the north by South Hinds Street, on the south by South Ferdinand Street, between 4th Avenue South and Martin Luther King Jr. Way South.
(Thanks to West Seattle Blog for tweeting useful info and more!)