SEATTLE — A deadly “bomb cyclone” battered western Washington this week with strong, gusty winds and rain, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of residents across the region.
The storm that reached the Puget Sound area Tuesday night knocked out power to over 650,000 customers during the peak of the outages. More than 230,000 residents were still without power Thursday evening. Most of the remaining outages Thursday were Puget Sound Energy customers.
As another round of strong wind approaches the Puget Sound region, crews with PSE rushed to repair the worst damaged transmission lines in the Issaquah area.
“We’re trying to get as much work up and running, with the stuff damaged by this previous storm, before this next storm comes in,” PSE spokesperson Andrew Padula told KOMO News, “We don’t want winds to come back and do any more damage to those things.”
Ahead of the re-emergence of dangerous winds, Padula said several line crews had been rerouted from other locations in King and Pierce Counties and sent to the Issaquah area to support existing crews in place on the Eastside. He added that energy crews from Idaho and Canada had been brought in to help.
PSE said the heaviest damage from the storm was in King County, which was the hardest hit area. The utility company said on its website that it expected power to be restored to a majority of customers in King County by noon on Saturday.
Power was anticipated to be restored to PSE customers in Whatcom, Skagit, Island and Kitsap counties by 6 p.m. Friday. The company expected customers in Pierce and Thurston counties to have power restored by 11:59 p.m. Thursday.
The utility company said the winds were comparable to a hurricane and “did unprecedented damage to our high-voltage transmission system – the poles and wires that carry electricity from where it is produced to the communities we serve.”
PSE said in an update Thursday afternoon 143 line crews were “working around the clock” to restore power to residents, adding that much of the work repairing the high-voltage transmission system “takes place in hard to reach, remote parts of western Washington.”
Power crews are prioritizing critical assets like schools and hospitals, according to PSE. By Thursday morning, the utility company said power had been restored to more than 315,000 customers, including more than 60 schools.
In addition to the nearly 150 line crews at work, PSE said 70 tree crews were also working to remove the dangerous and downed trees and debris across the region so crews could restore power.
Helicopters were dispatched Thursday morning “to assess damage to more quickly see the specific needs for our crews.”
PSE said it was also “closely watching” the additional incoming windy weather forecast to hit the region on Friday. The incoming system “may impact our ability to restore customers in the expected timeframe and cause additional outages.”
At least two people were killed in this week’s storm. A woman in Bellevue was hit and killed by a tree while she was taking a shower Tuesday night, and another woman died when a large tree fell on a homeless encampment off of Alderwood Mall Parkway in Lynnwood.
Under current projections, the next low-pressure system will pass through the Puget Sound region early Friday.
As a result, a Wind Advisory has been issued for the Cascade foothills and the Puget Sound eastern lowlands from late Thursday night to early Saturday morning. The warnings are happening in areas that were hit with high winds during Tuesday’s ‘bomb cyclone.’
by KOMO News Staff