Lightning strikes cut power to thousands

Lightning struck several places in Snohomish County on Saturday, knocking out power and forcing the evacuation of a dozen homes.

The most severe power outage occurred in the Edmonds area when lightning hit a power pole, traveled down a guy wire and ruptured a natural gas line, igniting gas on the ground at 188th Street SW and 88th Avenue W., Edmonds fire officials said.

That fire erupted about 6 p.m., but was contained to a 20- by 10-foot area, though fire crews had to evacuate a dozen homes and block traffic, fire officials said.

Edmonds fire crews were still at that scene Saturday night, keeping the fire contained and waiting for Puget Sound Energy crews to shut the line off.

That lightning strike put 4,000 people out of power for about 30 minutes, Snohomish County PUD spokesman Mike Thorne said.

Other lightning strikes occurred at 4:30 p.m. in the Silver Lake area, where 800 PUD customers were out of power for more than an hour, Thorne said.

Another outage occurred in the Lake Ballinger area when 1,085 people lost power at 5:47 p.m. The power was back on at 6:50 p.m., Thorne said.