LAKE STEVENS — Shawn Hawes was lying in bed around 7 p.m., pillows resting under the window, when he started to hear the tree fall.
Hawes had gotten foot surgery a few weeks ago, trying to correct damage from years working as a logger. But he ignored the pain of the screws in his ankle and foot as he flung himself out of bed to avoid being crushed.
The tree on his next-door neighbor’s property ripped through the swampy earth and crashed straight through the window where his head had just been.
“It almost killed me,” he said Wednesday. “The only reason I’m here is because I heard the crackling sound.”
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The tree severely damaged the top corner of his apartment on 16th Street NE, about a block from Lake Stevens, with visible cracks running through the ceiling of a storage room that had been his son’s bedroom.
Hawes is thinking of moving now, after living here for over six years.
“I’m not frightened easily, but that storm did it,” he said.
Shawn Hawes talks about barely making it out of bed before part of a tree shattered his window sending glass across his bed on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Lake Stevens, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
The storm, called a “bomb cyclone” for its rapid drop in atmospheric pressure, struck Snohomish County beginning Tuesday afternoon and continuing overnight. At its peak, 135,000 Snohomish County Public Utility District customers lost power around midnight. As of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, more than 42,000 customers were without power.
Restoration could take days, especially in Lake Stevens and Snohomish, which were hit particularly hard by the storm.
Snohomish PUD spokesperson Aaron Swaney said it could be into the weekend before power is restored. In November 2022, a winter storm ripped through Snohomish County, leaving nearly 200,000 without power.
“This one is a little bit less, but the damage is quite extensive,” Swaney said Wednesday.
Thirty-five crews from the PUD, along with 15 mutual aid crews, were working to restore power.
The storm has killed at least two people. One, a woman in her 50s, was killed after a large tree fell at a Lynnwood homeless encampment around 7 p.m. Tuesday. The other, a 65-year-old woman, was killed by a falling tree in Bellevue.
Wind gusts peaked at 77 mph at Mount Rainier around 6 p.m. Tuesday, according to unofficial National Weather Service data. Snohomish County saw gusts of 49 mph at Arlington Airport and 48 mph at Paine Field. The highest wind speed of the storm was off the coast of Canada, where a buoy near Vancouver Island recorded a gust of 101 mph at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Meteorologists said the storm wasn’t necessarily record-breaking — other weather events like the 2006 Hanukkah Eve Windstorm were stronger.
A tree fell onto a two-unit townhome in east Everett Tuesday night, shown here on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (Will Geschke / The Herald)
Schools across the county were delayed or closed Wednesday morning. Downed trees and power lines closed numerous road, and the Link light rail was suspended for just under an hour between Lynnwood and Northgate on Tuesday night. The train opened two hours late Wednesday.
The strongest winds came from the east, and were made more intense by the Cascade Range. The effect is known as “hydraulic dropping,” where changes in terrain cause higher wind speeds.
“When you have elevation differences, that can basically cause kind of a downslope effect, where you get the compression of winds and air just coming down the mountains,” said Harrison Rademacher, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Seattle. “Oftentimes, that speeds things up.”
Scott Peterson walks by a rootball as tall as the adjacent power pole from a tree that fell on the roof of an apartment complex he does maintenance for on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Lake Stevens, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
The Allen family’s power went out around 3:30 p.m, Tuesday on South Lake Stevens Road. The lights flickered back on an hour later just long enough to have a hot dinner before blacking out again, Lori Allen said. She’s lived in the house since the 1980s. Her husband Charles grew up on the land.
“This is probably the most wicked storm I’ve seen here,” she said.
A fallen tree barely missed a basement window where the family slept Tuesday night, but might’ve taken out the heat pump they recently installed. Another tree damaged a tree fort Charles Allen had built for his son, Kyle.
Another low pressure system is set to hit Western Washington by Friday, Rademacher said, but that storm is not expected to be as damaging. Most of those winds will be concentrated over open waters. Snow will be concentrated at higher elevations in Snohomish County.
Rich Bardue holds a coffee while he uses his leaf blower to clear debris from a downed tree off of South Lake Stevens Road on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024 in Lake Stevens, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
“Right now, we’re not seeing any true, impactful signs as of yet, but it’s something we’ll keep an eye on and, if needed, we’ll issue headlines if confidence increases that something’s going to potentially be damaging for people,” Rademacher said.
A tree fell onto a two-unit townhome in the 8000 block of Shadow Wood Drive at about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in Everett, collapsing onto a bedroom and crushing the roof.
Neighbors said the occupants were downstairs when the tree hit. No injuries were reported.
“They were a young couple, and they were obviously pretty shaken up,” said Diane Godfrey, who lives in the other unit.
On Wednesday morning, next-door neighbors were clearing their front yards of broken tree branches. No other buildings were damaged. The larger tree damaged a number of other trees as it fell.
“We got lucky it didn’t do damage to anything here,” said Tony Springer, who lives next door.
In his six years living here, Springer said he’d never seen a storm like this.
Herald editor Michael Henneke contributed to this report.
Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.
Eliza Aronson: 425-339-3434; eliza.aronson@heraldnet.com; X: @ElizaAronson. Eliza’s stories are supported by the Herald’s Environmental and Climate Reporting Fund.
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