High winds batter county

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, December 4, 2003

Thousands of people were without power, and the Monroe School District canceled classes after a turbulent windstorm hit pockets of Snohomish County Thursday.

As gusts approaching 50 mph toppled trees and power lines in southern and eastern parts of the county throughout the day, the number of residents without power fluctuated.

The National Weather Service Thursday evening issued a watch for high, damaging winds this evening continuing into Saturday in the wake of a developing storm system headed for Western Washington and British Columbia.

As many as 8,000 people in the county were without power Thursday. The Snohomish County PUD dispatched more than three dozen crews to help with downed trees and lines and to work to restore power in some areas, PUD spokesman Neil Neroutsos said.

By late Thursday evening, about 6,000 customers were still without power. Most of the outages were in Snohomish, Monroe, Gold Bar and Sultan, but scattered outages in the Lynnwood area were also reported.

Neroutsos said the PUD would work through the night to restore power to customers, if need be.

"We get some areas up and running, and then get hit by some other outages," Neroutsos said. "It’s difficult to say when things will be back on line. It depends on how long the winds in the eastern part of the county keep blowing."

In the town of Snohomish, the high winds blew a tree over onto a pickup while it was driving along the 900 block of 99th Avenue SE at about 6 a.m. Thursday. The tree brought down some power lines with it.

The driver, a 44-year-old Lake Stevens man, was transported to Everett to receive treatment for minor injuries from flying glass, said Richard Adkins, deputy chief of Snohomish County Fire District 8.

Power outages and safety concerns prompted the Monroe School District to first delay its school day, then cancel school altogether.

The windstorm didn’t hit the Monroe area until about 4:30 a.m. —about an hour before the time the district normally makes its delay or cancellation decisions, district spokeswoman Rosemary O’Neil said.

"That’s what is the frustrating thing about living in this area, weather conditions change so quickly," she said.

After the storm hit, district officials received reports of downed trees and power lines as well as power outages. Two district schools were without power early Thursday.

"We were given the estimate of six to eight hours without power, which is pretty much the whole school day," O’Neil said.

Along with power, getting the students to school would have caused headaches. O’Neil said many roads weren’t clear. But such weather is a part of living in the Northwest, she said.

"Sometimes we have to adjust to go with the weather," O’Neil said. "It’s not our choice, but we have to do it for the safety of our students."

Some of the hardest-hit areas appeared to be the foothills of the Cascade mountains.

Monroe firefighters received and responded to numerous calls for downed trees and power lines, Monroe Fire Battalion Chief Derik Millich said.

The most serious call, he said, was for a tree that fell on a house in the 26100 block of Old Owen Road.

Towns east of Snohomish and Monroe received no relief from the winds, though the Sultan School District held classes in spite of the storm. However, the district could not provide bus service to some outlying areas because of trees and power lines in the roadway.

The PUD’s Neroutsos reminded people to stay away from downed power lines.

"Treat them all as live lines," Neroutsos said. "People have been injured or killed as a result of coming into contact with an electricity line. Move away and call your local utility."

In October, a Marysville man was fatally electrocuted when he tried to stomp out a brush fire and came in contact with a live power wire just north of Lake Stevens.

The winds caused even more problems south and east of the county, as more than 186,000 people and businesses in Western Washington were without power, The Associated Press reported.

Dorothy Bracken, a spokeswoman for Puget Sound Energy, which had 180,000 customers without power at the storm’s peak, said it could be days before some people get power back. The hardest hit areas included Enumclaw, Fall City, Black Diamond, Snoqualmie and North Bend, Bracken said.

Reporter Jennifer Warnick: 425-339-3429 or jwarnick@heraldnet.com.