65,000 remain without power

SEATTLE – Crews worked Thursday to restore power to the approximately 65,000 utility customers who remained without electricity one week after a fierce windstorm knocked out power to 1.5 million.

Fewer than 60,000 Puget Sound Energy customers were still in the dark as of 4 p.m., the company said. Winds that gusted to 45 mph Wednesday night knocked out power to 3,000 customers.

PSE said it hoped to have service restored to all but 50,000 by the middle of Thursday night, and to have service restored to all but a few isolated neighborhoods by Sunday.

Seattle City Light reported that it still had 3,600 customers without power.

Snohomish County Public Utility District had all of its outages fixed by Thursday, and Tacoma Power had just a few hundred customers still in the dark.

Gov. Chris Gregoire and King County Executive Ron Sims toured several sites in King County on Thursday to talk with residents, thank work crews and survey damage.

One spot they visited was the hard-hit Woodinville-Duvall Road area, where they thanked county roads crews, PSE utility crews and out-of-state crews working to restore services.

King County said damage estimates thus far total $10.2 million in structural damage and $1.8 million in personal property damage. Nineteen businesses have reported $397,200 in structural damage and a $541,500 loss in inventory.

Social service agencies continued to stress the danger of using generators, grills, barbecues and other unvented power and heat sources indoors after seven people died of carbon monoxide poisoning following the windstorm.

Another weather system brought rain and winds gusting to more than 30 mph across much of the Puget Sound region early Thursday, but no new widespread outages or major damage was reported.

The total storm death toll rose to 13 with confirmation of carbon monoxide poisoning after Shah Fazli, 73, an immigrant from Afghanistan, was found unconscious at his apartment in Kenmore.