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The National Weather Service has issued a wind advisory for locations in our service area from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning, with southeast to southwest winds forecasted including gusts up to 50 mph.

We have been watching the forecast closely and preparing for stormy weather. Our Emergency Coordination Center and local storm bases are staffed and ready to open and crews will deploy with assignments as it’s safe to do so.

We know how disruptive power outages can be. We appreciate your patience and will be working to restore power as quickly as we safely can. 

As we prepare for storm conditions, we encourage our customers to do the same: 

  • Make sure to have emergency supplies on hand at home and in your vehicle, such as extra batteries, flashlights, food and blankets 
  • Have a battery-powered radio ready to go 
  • Charge cell phones and mobile devices in case the power goes out 
 

alert 

Safety first.

  • Never touch or go within 35 feet of downed power lines because they might be energized. Call PSE at 1-888-225-5773 or 911 to report problems.

  • If you’re using portable heaters, keep them away from furniture, draperies and other flammable materials.

  • Always use flashlights instead of candles.

  • Be aware of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning:

    • Never install or use a generator indoors or in enclosed or partially-enclosed areas, even those that are ventilated. When using your generator outdoors during a power outage, avoid placing it near windows, doors and vents. More generator safety tips: pse.com/en/pages/generator-safety  
    • Never use a natural gas range for heating, or charcoal as an indoor heating or cooking source.
    • Additional carbon monoxide safety information: pse.com/en/pages/carbon-monoxide

  • Never charge your phone or other devices in a running vehicle with the garage door closed.

  • Make sure that natural gas appliances are maintained and operated according to manufacturer recommendations.

Floating Surface Collector

Innovation: Boosting fish populations

Following the construction of Lower Baker Dam in 1925 and Upper Baker Dam in 1959, adult sockeye runs in Baker River remained relatively stable, averaging about 3,000 fish annually. But in the early 1980s, returns inexplicably plummeted, with just 99 fish returning in 1985. Many feared the river's sockeye population could die out altogether.

PSE, government resource agencies, local Native American tribes and other stakeholders responded collaboratively with an aggressive fish-recovery effort. The work included PSE's construction of a man-made "spawning beach" alongside Baker Lake to boost the number of salmon fry, as well as a series of modifications to a fish-attraction barge PSE had built in the late 1950s for helping juvenile salmon bypass both Baker River dams for downstream migration.

In 2008, PSE took another major step forward with the completion of an innovative Floating Surface Collector on Baker Lake. In its first few years of operation, the 1,000-ton apparatus produced dramatic results. The outmigration of Baker River juvenile salmon hit record levels in 2009 and again in 2010, when an all-time high of more than 520,000 fingerling salmon, mostly sockeye, were collected and transported downstream.

Fisheries biologists say they can't identify any other notable contributing factors or changes, beyond the new floating surface collector, that would point to such dramatic outmigration success in consecutive years. The record-setting outmigrations, they say, suggest that our fish-passage systems are working extremely well.

In 2009, the National Hydropower Association bestowed one of its Outstanding Stewards of America's Waters awards on PSE for our construction of the FSC. The National Marine Fisheries Service calls it a model for other high-reservoir dam operators. Representatives from dozens of domestic and foreign utilities have toured PSE's Baker River operation and several are either exploring or actively pursuing fish-migration methods based on our system.

The Floating Surface Collector attracts and safely holds juvenile salmon for downstream transport around our two hydroelectric dams on the Baker River. The one-of-a-kind, 130-foot-by-60-foot barge is equipped with a series of submerged screens, water pumps, fish-holding chambers, a fish-evaluation station, equipment-control rooms and a fish-loading facility. Fine-mesh guide nets extend from shore to shore and from the lake's surface to its bottom, forming an impassible netting funnel that leads small migrating fish to the collector facility.

A similar FSC was built and put into operation in 2013 on Lake Shannon, behind Lower Baker Dam.


Learn more

Visit the fish page for more information and videos about PSE's fish enhancement program.

Floating Surface CollectorFloating surface collector on Baker Lake