UPDATE: 1:20 pm: Power has been restored.

UPDATE FROM PUGET SOUND ENERGY, 12:45 p.m: At 11:06 a.m. our Rolling Hills substation in Renton experienced an outage impacting 7,028 customers. Our substation inspector determined that the outage was caused by a bird that got into our equipment. We are currently switching the load to surrounding substations to restore power to our customers. As of 12:20, we’ve restored 2,800 customers. All remaining customers are expected to be restored by 1:30 p.m. today.

ORIGINAL STORY

A power outage at about 11:35 a.m. Tuesday affecting at least 7,000 customers has left seven Renton schools operating on generators in the Cascade-Fairwood area.

Puget Sound Energy has crews in the area and is estimating it will restore power by 1:30 p.m., according to its website.

The affected schools are Lindbergh High School, Nelsen Middle School, Renton Academy and HOME program, and Cascade, Renton Park and Tiffany Park elementary schools.

Classes are continuing at those schools and  students are not being sent home, although parents can pick up their children if they wish, according to the Renton School District.

The schools have food and heat. (To clarify, a teacher at Tiffany Park reported that her school didn’t have heat and the classroom got noticeably colder.)

The Renton Reporter has contacted Puget Sound Energy to determine what caused the outages.