Mighty winds

  • John Santana<br>Mill Creek Enterprise editor
  • Monday, March 3, 2008 11:24am

Broken tree branches were strewn all over the fairways at the Mill Creek Country Club the afternoon after a powerful windstorm blew through the area, but there were still golfers out on the course.

Doug Donaldson of Mill Creek was among a group of five golfers who wouldn’t let a little thing like downed trees overtake a tee time.

“Oh yeah,” Donaldson said about playing golf on Friday, Dec. 15, a day after last week’s windstorm. “What the heck.”

Donaldson said normally his group, which plays three times a week at the country club, usually consists of anywhere from eight to 12 members, all of whom live in Mill Creek. But after the storm, there were just five of them who decided to play.

“We’re five old men with nothing else to do,” joked Ron Siggs, a member of the group.

The golfers said whenever they encountered broken branches, they just moved them out of the way.

Even though the golfers were in a jovial mood, there were plenty of reminders of the damage the windstorm of Thursday, Dec. 14, did around Mill Creek.

On the country club’s eighth fairway, an evergreen tree that was probably a hundred feet tall was felled by the high winds, but didn’t block the fairway. The tree was located about 150 yards from the tee.

“It’s been there a long time,” Donaldson said. “I’d hate to see it go.”

The scene with the country club evergreen tree was repeated throughout the city of Mill Creek on Dec. 15, as streets and sidewalks were covered with branches and fallen trees.

The storm – which lashed Snohomish County with 75-mph gusts late Thursday and early Friday – knocked out power to thousands of homes as nighttime temperatures plummeted into the mid-20s and low 30s.

Trees fell across streets near the country club, along Village Green Drive and across from Heron Park, and in the Red Cedar neighborhood near Mill Creek Elementary School.

Between five and 12 homes in the Mill Creek Community Association were struck by falling trees, said Mary Ann Baggenstos, executive administrator for the homeowner’s association. All damage was minor, she said.

A car, however, was totalled in the Cottonwood neighborhood when a tree fell on it, and several trees in the nature preserve behind the Juniper neighborhood also took a heavy hit, she said.

Red Cedar resident Becky Hebert was clearing branches and debris from Red Cedar Avenue SE on Dec. 15, pushing debris onto the curb.

“I have nowhere to put it,” she said. “I’m just trying to get it out of the way so people can drive in and out.”

Hebert said a crew came out during the height of the windstorm and cut up the felled evergreen and carted it away. The tree did not hit any homes.

Crews from the city of Mill Creek and the Mill Creek Community Association were out during the storm clearing debris. Public works crews and the police worked together to keep roads clear, public works director Tim Burns said.

Burns said several trees fell into fences, including along Dumas Road. A city public works truck also was struck by a tree and suffered minor roof damage, Burns said. The driver wasn’t hurt.

But trees weren’t the only menace during the storm. Most residents lost power.

Hebert said she lost power in her home around 10 p.m. Dec. 14, and it didn’t come back on until just before 12:30 p.m. Dec. 15. Elsewhere in town, such as Town Center, outages lasted longer. (See separate story, page 4)

“I’ve never seen a windstorm like this before,” Hebert said. “I was terrified last night.”

Gilbert Ponce heard a loud boom before he fell asleep, mistaking the noise for branches hitting his Mill Creek-area home.

When he awoke the next morning, two stately evergreens had fallen across the road outside his house, smashing into a neighbor’s home across the street. The power had been knocked out, too.

Ponce’s Mays Pond neighborhood, in the 100 block of 170th Street SE, was one of many in the area that remained trashed and without electricity Saturday, Dec. 15 in the wake of the windstorm.

Ponce, 41, stayed with his wife and son at a family member’s house in Lynnwood until their power was back on. He returned to his home Dec. 15 to clean debris from his yard and to dry his kitchen floor, which was soaked by his thawed-out freezer.

At the height of the windstorm, as many as 120,000 PUD customers were without power.

Landscaper Andy Newton, owner of Newton Landscaping in Everett, was doing routine work at a home in the Spring Tree neighborhood the day after the storm.

“It’s just routine work, but it’s really a mess,” Newton said.

Newton said his business was already getting more calls from people eager to have broken branches cleared away.

“I can’t complain,” said Newton, a resident of South Everett. “I love it everywhere except at my house.”

Fire District 7 was busy during the storm, responding to 64 calls on Dec. 14 and 74 calls on Dec. 15. The district usually averages about 18 calls a day, said district spokeswoman Audrey Duncan.

“Firefighters were working non-stop Thursday and Friday,” Duncan said.

Storm-related calls included downed power lines, a tree that fell into a house, trees that fell into wires and natural gas odors. Auto accidents also increased, she said.

Some accidents may have been triggered by traffic signals not working because of power outages. Signals were out along 164th Street SE and Bothell-Everett Highway the day after the storm. Traffic slowed approaching those intersections, with the worst backups on 164th going in both directions around North Road and Cascadian Way.

Scott Pesznecker, a reporter with The Herald in Everett, contributed to this report.

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