Summer Storms Cut the Juice
A severe thunderstorm fried local electrical transformers, leaving the White Bluffs pumping plants idle for three days.
Putting the P.P.L. transmission line out of commission for three days, a thunderstorm passed over the valley early Friday morning. Lightning burned out the transformers stepping the juice down for the White Bluffs pumping plants, and water was at a premium until Monday afternoon. The Hanford ditch pumps, however, were out of commission but a few hours.
“Lightning burned out the transformers stepping the juice down for the White Bluffs pumping plants, and water was at a premium.”
The precariousness of the early electrical grid in agricultural Washington—where a single lightning strike could halt the water supply—is a reminder of the fragility of the settlement's reliance on imported technology at the time.
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