Power has been restored to nearly all of the customers affected by last Thursday’s powerful windstorm that blew through Western Washington.
Over 322,000 homes and businesses lost power during the peak of Thursday’s outages.
Around 300 Puget Sound Energy (PSE) customers were without power Monday night.
“We’ve made great progress, and many of the remaining outages are impacting small pockets of customers, a result of extensive damage that requires time-consuming repairs. Crews are going neighborhood by neighborhood to restore distribution electric service, which gets get restored in much smaller numbers, such as to 5, 10 or 20 customers at a time,” PSE said in a 6 a.m. update posted on their website Monday.
Clallam County PUD and Snohomish County PUD reported a total of 10 scattered outages Monday night, while Grays Harbor PUD reported no outages.
Most Seattle City Light and Tacoma Public Utilities customers who lost power due to Thursday’s storm had it restored by Saturday morning.
“What's different about this storm is the type and depth of damage to the electrical equipment: transmission lines are on the ground and poles are completely destroyed – the type of damage that takes longer to fix,” PSE said in a tweet.
Bellingham Airport and Paine Field in Everett each got hit with gusts up to 66 mph, Mount Baker reported a 117 mph gust, and White Pass recorded a 107 mph gust Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
Downed trees and power lines forced both directions of I-5 near Bow Hill Road to close for several hours. At least three cars were hit or entangled in the power lines, but there were no reports of serious injuries. The Deception Pass Bridge and Hood Canal Bridge were also closed for several hours due to high winds.
Sounder service north of Seattle was suspended Thursday afternoon, but it has resumed after Seattle City Light repairs. Trains will run at reduced speeds, and delays are expected. Special bus service will continue to take riders from Seattle to Edmonds, Mukilteo, and Everett. That service will leave from Fourth Avenue South and South Jackson Street. A bus schedule can be found here.
The storm toppled some large trees, caused damage to homes from falling debris, and caused some minor flooding from high waves.
At a transportation briefing Thursday, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said officials expect some large trees to come down during this windstorm and urged people to use caution around downed power lines.
“We will have full crews out there to prevent this from happening,” Durkan said. “They have been trimming all the trees around power lines, but most importantly please if you see power lines come down, do not go near them.”
The High Wind Warning also included Port Orchard in Kitsap County where an EF-2 tornado touched down Tuesday, causing damage to 250 homes. It was the strongest tornado Washington has seen since 1986, according to the National Weather Service.
