Snow leaves some in South Sound without power for nearly 24 hours
Feb 10, 2019, 8:38 AM
PUD fixing downed power lines on Main St. in Edmonds. (Steve Lanier)
(Steve Lanier)
Moonlight and headlights were the only lights in some neighborhoods around the South Sound on Saturday, when outages from the most recent snowstorm left thousands of customers without power as temperatures dipped down into the single digits overnight in parts of the area.
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Puget Sound Energy deployed teams to get the lights back on as the region braced for another round of forecast snow.
At the peak of outages, over 40,000 PSE customers were reported without power on Saturday. Early Sunday, that number was down near 20,000.
More than 100 outages across the Puget Sound had been fixed between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., with much more work ahead for crews.
Some neighbors around Olympia High School reported having no power since 11 p.m. Friday night.
Julio Cortes told KIRO 7 he was without power for 21 hours. PSE crews working near his home were a welcome sight.
“I’m happy for that,” said Cortes. “I don’t know how long I can take this.”
Fallen trees and snapped limbs were to blame for many of the outages in the South Sound.
KIRO 7 spotted downed lines and trees across the Olympia area, including part of a tree that had fallen on a home and become entangled in lines along S. Bay Road NE.
Thurston County Emergency Management posted a long list of road closures on its Facebook page, many caused by fallen trees and downed power lines.
I-5 through Thurston County remained slick in areas Saturday even as plows treated the freeway.
A BMW stuck on the side of I-5 in the southbound lanes near Pacific Avenue was among dozens of spinouts and crashes the Washington State Patrol responded to in Thurston and Pierce counties on Saturday alone.
Farther north, in Tacoma, there were rolling slowdowns along I-5 Saturday afternoon as a line of plows worked a particularly snowy and icy stretch of the freeway.
Roads were expected to remain slick across the South Sound as temperatures dropped into the night with concern building about Sunday’s drive.
Public works crews in Olympia told KIRO 7 they would work into the overnight hours treating roads.
Written by Michael Spears
