City of Seattle, WA
Power reliability at City of Seattle
City of Seattle customers in Washington had 1 interruptions last year, 2.6 hours total - a bit below the typical US utility's outage time. That is 59% less outage time than the Washington state average of 6.4 hours a year.
Outage length, and what it means for a generator
A typical outage here runs about 2.5 hours - long enough that a battery alone usually will not see you through, but short enough that a fuel-powered portable generator is a reasonable match. Why outage length, not count, picks the backup: how often vs how long.
The generator question for City of Seattle
Serving 527,764 customers here, Nothing here says you should buy a generator today - City of Seattle's record is a little better than most of the country, though it is worth checking your own past outages before ruling one out.
The source behind this number
These figures come from EIA Form 861, the reliability report a municipally-owned utility like City of Seattle files with federal regulators every year - serving 527,764 customers hereaveraged across the whole territory, not any one address or storm. See Washington as a whole, across every utility that filed: Washington's outage record. Storm days are counted in - here is why.