Camano residents sick of the dark

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, November 30, 2006

CAMANO ISLAND – On south Camano Island, homes are dark. Food is rotting. Toilets are backed up and overflowing.

Blame the wintry weather that arrived here Sunday and is taking its sweet time leaving.

“I can live without the power and I can live without the hot water, but I’m beginning to get a little desperate about the sewage problem,” Pat Foss said Thursday. The retired medical technologist has been without power for almost five days.

“It’s becoming a health hazard,” she said.

In most of the Puget Sound region, the effects of the season’s first snowstorm are melting away. Roads are clearing, many schools are back in session and snowmen are shrinking.

But for the 4,000 or so Snohomish County PUD customers still in the dark Thursday evening, life was anything but normal.

Margrit MacGregor braved the icy roads Thursday in hopes she’d be able to persuade the PUD to restore power to her Camano Island neighborhood. She said her husband has Parkinson’s disease and they’re on a fixed income. If power isn’t restored soon, she’ll lose $300 to $400 worth of groceries.

“I’m losing food I can’t afford to replace,” she said. “It’s kind of scary. Five days is enough.”

PUD spokesman Mike Thorne said crews are working around the clock to restore power to customers in Darrington, Arlington, Stanwood and Camano Island. Though crews had cut the number of customers without power in half from Wednesday to Thursday, it could be another day or two before everyone has power, he said.

“I know there are people who desperately need power,” he said. “The main thing we want them to know is we are doing everything possible to expedite it.”

In the meantime, some Camano Island residents are banding together trying to ease their suffering.

Stephanie Simonson, 16, and her friend have been using an ATV quad to deliver groceries to snowed-in residents on Camano Island.

While working 16-hour days fixing furnaces throughout the region, Stanwood resident Dale Furman also has dropped milk and eggs off at homes where people are trapped.

Project manager Bobby Drake turned on the four-wheel-drive to chauffeur his neighbors into town. He also delivered thermoses of hot water to a neighbor without a generator. Like many others on Camano Island, he’s emptied his refrigerator into his snowy back yard to keep groceries from spoiling.

“There are people that can’t get off the island and they need to survive,” said Terri Cleveland, manager of True Value Hardware on Camano Island. “I can’t imagine being trapped at home with no heat and no electricity.”

On Monday morning – mere hours after the storm lashed the island – True Value was sold out of propane cylinders, kerosene, lamp oil, Coleman fuel and D batteries, Cleveland said.

When a truck with more supplies arrived Tuesday, customers bought its contents within a half-hour.

“I’ve lived here since 1963,” Cleveland said, standing in the bustling store. “This is the biggest storm that’s hit the island since then that I can remember.”

Rising temperatures caused a new set of problems Thursday.

Firefighters around Snohomish and Island counties were called to help people mop up after thawing water pipes burst.

“Once things warm up, that ice stuck in cracks loosen up and the water begins to flow out. It can be costly to clean up,” said Christian Davis, battalion chief with North County Fire and Emergency Medical Services.

Business has picked up at Day &Nite Plumbing and Heating Inc. Between people needing their furnaces repaired and water pipes breaking, technicians have been hopping from job to job around Snohomish County, employee Doris Wenner said.

“Most of the calls have been for pipes in garages or outside faucets, places that aren’t insulated,” Wenner said.

The soggy weather brought down a high-voltage power line in the Ebey Slough area. Puget Sound Energy crews brought in a helicopter and a boat to reach and make emergency repairs to a 100-foot wooden pole that crashed into another transmission line, spokeswoman Martha Monfried said.

The wild weather also left behind a mess for travelers coming and going over the mountains on U.S. 2.

Heavy rain and snowmelt washed out the bank of the Wenatchee River and undermined the highway about five miles west of Leavenworth. U.S. 2 will be closed next week beginning at 11 a.m. Monday as crews rebuild the riverbank.

Drivers will face a 30-mile detour as they are rerouted onto Chumstick Highway. Large trucks must use Snoqualmie and White passes. Crews hope to have the road reopened for Leavenworth’s Christmas Lighting Festival beginning Dec. 8.

Warmer days are ahead, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Johnny Burg.

Expect partly cloudy skies today and Saturday with highs in the upper 30s to mid-40s. On Sunday, rain will likely return and stick around through Monday, Burg said.

This week’s soggy weather helped give November the dubious distinction of being the wettest month ever in Seattle. As of Thursday morning, 15.59 inches of rain and snow had fallen in Seattle. The previous record of 15.33 inches was set in December 1933.

“Thanks God it’s over,” Burg said. “I hope we don’t see anything like this for a long, long time.”

Reporter Diana Hefley contributed to this report.

Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.