A power outage that impacted swaths of Blaine for over two hours on Saturday, August 12 forced U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to shut down the Peace Arch border crossing until power was restored.
A tripped fuse at a local Puget Sound Energy substation caused the outage, said Gary McSpadden, operations and maintenance manager for Blaine Public Works Department.
The fuse was tripped around 3:30 p.m. on August 12, causing a complete standstill at the U.S. crossing. CBP officers were forced to detour the waiting travelers to alternate ports of entry at State Route 543 and State Route 539. Washington State Department of Transportation announced on social media that power was restored to the border station at 4:44 p.m.
The Peace Arch border crossing is the third busiest U.S./Canadian port of entry (POE), and boasted over 7 million crossings in 2022, according to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
In a statement to The Northern Light, CBP stated that although the border station has backup generators in the event of an outage, “all backup generator power stopped, and the Peace Arch POE experienced a total loss of all power.”
The Canada Border Services Agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were informed of the outage by CBP, and were moving travelers to alternate ports until power was restored.
In the event of a fuse trip like the one that occurred, it takes time to restore power without tripping again, McSpadden said. This meant that although the cause of the outage was determined quickly after power was lost, it wasn’t fully restored until 6 p.m.
This article was updated August 21 to correct the name of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. We regret the error.
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