Three Dead, 1 Million Lose Power in Destructive Northwest Windstorm

The Weather Channel – by Sean Breslin

At least three people are dead and more than 1 million lost power Tuesday as powerful winds raked the Pacific Northwest and parts of the interior Northwest.

Winds were clocked as high as 119 mph in the mountains of Washington state while urban centers were buffeted by winds strong enough to cause extensive damage to trees and buildings, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people in the Seattle and Spokane areas.  

Heavy rain is also causing its share of problems, contributing to serious flooding in parts of western Washington.

(FORECAST: High Winds, Heavy Rain and Snow Impacting the Pacific Northwest)

Here are the latest impacts from this system.

Washington

Falling trees were blamed for three deaths, extensive power outages and structural damage Tuesday in Washington.

A man in his 20s was killed when a tree came down on his car near Monroe Tuesday afternoon. A spokesperson from the Snohomish County Fire District 5 told Seattle television station KOMO that the incident occurred on Ben Howard Road around 1 p.m. local time.

A windblown tree snapped off and struck a King County Metro Bus in the north Seattle suburb of Shoreline, sending the driver to the hospital with neck and back pain.  (King County Sheriff’s Office)

A woman in her 50s was killed in her car by a falling tree near the corner of 14th Ave and Division Street in Spokane, reported Assistant Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer of the Spokane Fire Department. The tree was reported to have fallen around 3:30 p.m. local time.

Another driver was killed in a fatal collision with a tree that fell onto State Route 904 near Cheney in eastern Washington, according to Washington State Patrol District 4 public information officer Jeff Sevigney.

Conditions were so bad that the Greater Spokane Department of Emergency Management issued a “shelter in place” bulletin around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, advising all residents to stay in a sheltered location. The bulletin said “extreme winds” were resulting in downed trees and flying debris in the Spokane area.

Spokane schools have canceled Wednesday classes, KREM.com reported.

In all, at least 522,000 customers had lost power at one time or another in Washington as of midnight Tuesday night.

“Given the typical ratio of power customers to actual people, this means at least 1 million people were affected by power outages in Washington alone,” said weather.com senior meteorologist Nick Wiltgen.

High winds caused widespread power outages. The worst of the outages were in the Spokane area, where the National Weather Service office tweeted that the power outages are among the most extensive ever seen in Spokane’s history. Electric utility Avista said 70 percent of its 181,000 Spokane County customers were without power shortly after midnight early Wednesday.

In some areas, powerless residents ventured out to look for dinner in restaurants that had power, unable to cook their own. KOMO-TV reported some customers were willing to eat in the dark at Mukilteo restaurant Brooklyn Bros. Pizza.

“People were turning on their flashlights on their phones and continuing to eat,” Bailey Forman, a cashier at the restaurant, told KOMO. “It was awesome and then I started lighting candles on the tables so people could kind of see, but there’s not much we could do.”

The winds damaged far more than just power lines. In the north Seattle suburb of Shoreline, a windblown tree snapped off and struck a King County Metro Bus, sending the driver to the hospital with neck and back pain.

The King County Sheriff’s Office says it happened just before 10 a.m. Tuesday as officials were receiving many calls about downed trees during a heavy wind and rain storm. The tree struck the Route 331 bus near Shoreline Community College. The driver was the only person on board. She was taken to Northwest Hospital.

A building in downtown Spokane has had its roof cave in. Five people evacuated safely, according to KHQ-TV in Spokane.

Another report of a car crushed by a downed tree surfaced in Spokane. The woman who was driving emerged unharmed, reported local television station KREM.

Part of the roof on the SpokAnimal adoption center building in Spokane was blown off, according to storm reports relayed by the National Weather Service.

The Washington Department of Transportation shut down a 17-mile stretch of Interstate 90 from the Vantage Bridge to Adams Road, five miles east of George, Tuesday afternoon due to poor visibility from blowing dust.

The DOT told Reuters that a mudslide closed parts of State Route 20, north of Seattle, while flooding and downed trees forced the closure of a stretch of U.S. Route 2.

A 119-mph wind gust was clocked by an anemometer on White Pass in the Cascade Range Tuesday afternoon. White Pass is located about 80 miles southeast of Seattle. Several other mountain locations gusted over 110 mph Tuesday.

Heavy rain from this windstorm, in addition to rain from another strong Pacific storm last week, sent rivers above flood stage in western Washington, with the worst flooding occurring north and northeast of Seattle.

The Skykomish River in Snohomish County near Gold Bar crested at its third highest level on record late Tuesday, over 7 feet above flood stage, the highest level since the record-setting November 2006 flood.

Flood waters swamped the town of Sultan, about six miles downstream from Gold Bar, Tuesday night, prompting of a rescue of one woman forced to climb out her front window, according to King5.com.

The Snohomish River at Monroe, seven miles west of Sultan, was rising to a crest Wednesday morning just over five feet above flood stage, with flooded homes, roads and farmlands expected to be flooded. The National Weather Service in Seattle. River levels of 31 feet at Snohomish could overtop levees, with major levee damage possible, according to the NWS.

Flooding along the Stillaguamish River near Arlington prompted a shutdown of state route 530 east of the city, and flooded several homes. The river crested at its highest level in almost five years Tuesday, 6.5 feet above flood stage.

Oregon

More than 25,000 households lost power in the Portland area Tuesday afternoon and evening due to high winds, according to Portland General Electric’s website.

Pacific Power reported more than 4,500 Oregon customers without power at one point.

Portions of Interstate 84 east of Portland were closed as trees fell onto the road’s path through the Columbia River Gorge. That closure affected areas between Troutdale and Hood River, KXL.com reported.

Wind gusts were clocked as high as 86 mph on Mount Hebo in the mountains along Oregon’s coast.

Idaho

Northern Idaho bore the brunt of the storm’s high winds late Tuesday. Gusts were measured as high as 101 mph on Schweitzer Mountain in Bonner County.

A 22-year-old was in critical condition after a tree fell onto his car in the Twin Lakes area, according to the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office.

Avista reported more than 35,000 customers without power in northern Idaho early Wednesday, including nearly 100 percent of Shoshone County and Benewah County customers.

Kootenai Electric listed more than 9,000 customers on its outage map early Wednesday.

British Columbia

More than 73,000 customers were without power in British Columbia Tuesday night, including more than 60,000 in the Vancouver area, according to utility provider BC Hydro.

The Sooke School District, which serves approximately 9,200 students on southern Vancouver Island, reported numerous schools without power and asked parents to pick up their children early from school.

Montana 

The National Weather Service reported two overturned vehicles due to non-thunderstorm winds. A cargo van was blown over on U.S. Route 2 in Glacier County, as well as a camper trailer on Interstate 15 in Pondera County.

The Associated Press contributed to this story. 

http://www.weather.com/news/weather/news/northwest-high-winds-rain-snow-impacts

4 thoughts on “Three Dead, 1 Million Lose Power in Destructive Northwest Windstorm”

  1. Engineered weather is as illegal as it is unethical.
    A previously burned wildfire fighter is being released from the hospital today after months of treatment from burns sustained battling an enormous fire brought about by the engineered west coast drought.
    The weather patterns in the PNW are exceedingly ramped up of late. We went from severe drought to hurricane force weather. No transition through autumn.
    Senators Cantwell and Murray will not return any response when I’ve asked numerous times why they are spraying us like bugs.
    Psychopaths Rule.

    Reply

  2. I don’t mean to be facetious, but maybe, just maybe, folks in the Pacific Northwest will consider stop being so damned concerned about the freakin’ Seattle Seahawks and worry about how they are going to deal with this reality–from someone who used to concern herself with NFL results!

    Reply

  3. Twin Lakes is not far from me.
    It is not a town but a pair of adjoining lakes.
    Spokane airport had gusts over 70mph.
    The State routes in the area were blocked for a time.
    It was likely your detour was also blocked when you were trying to get home.
    The power lines are broken in 3 places in a mile and a half.
    A tree top is in the lines about 1/2 mile from here.
    I am on generator power for now.
    I will be surprised if we have power back by tomorrow.

    Reply

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