SEATTLE – As power utilities brought in crews from as far away as Missouri and Wyoming to rebuild transmission systems devastated by last week’s wind storm, some Western Washington residents – frustrated after five days in the dark – were hoping to have their power back by the holidays.
It wasn’t looking likely for Eileen Shields and the residents of about 200 other homes in Upper Preston, a rural enclave in the Cascade foothills 25 miles east of Seattle. The neighborhood was a low priority for Puget Sound Energy crews.
“They’re telling us we’re the last on the list,” Shields said Tuesday night. “No showers, no water, no power. I’ve been having to take 55-gallon drums down to the Grange (feed store) to get water for my horses. I’m on overload.”
Across the region about 180,000 utility customers remained without power, and the restoration was slow going.
Puget Sound Energy, the state’s largest utility, took out full-page newspaper advertisements to tell readers its crews were working as hard as they could, but that the damage to the electrical system was “monumental”: “In many areas, we are literally having to rebuild the system, from the substation to people’s doors.”
The utility said repairs in some of the hardest-hit areas would require working through the weekend.
The storm that hit Thursday night and Friday morning brought heavy rain and winds that gusted to nearly 70 mph in Seattle, snapping utility poles and feet-thick trees. Twelve Washington state deaths have been attributed to the storm, including people who were crushed by falling trees, stepped on downed power lines or were trapped by rising water. Four members of a Burien family were found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning Monday; one survivor improved from critical to serious condition Tuesday.
In east suburban Bellevue, crews called in from Wyoming and Montana worked on a tangle of downed power lines Tuesday near the shore of Lake Sammamish. The job required them to make sure the lines were grounded; remove a transformer that may have been leaking hazardous chemicals and have it evaluated by an environmental specialist; determine whether asbestos had been used on part of the wires called a riser; and then use a truck to gingerly remove the broken utility pole and replace it.
Even with the lines strung up, the power wasn’t going to be restored to the 1,000 homes in the area: There was another trouble spot about a mile up the road.
“It’s just horrific compared to what I’ve seen before,” said Rich Adams, the Puget Sound Energy foreman on the job. “We could all be working Christmas, it looks like.”
J.P. Slagle, a 38-year-old Hamlin Electric Co. worker from Riverton, Wyo., said he and 31 other company employees from Wyoming were prepared for that.
“Everybody’s here until we leave, then we’ll have a good Christmas,” he said. “These people need our help, and that’s what we do.”
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