Entire Washington town without power as crews trudge through rough terrain

The entire town of Skykomish is without power, with residents reporting intermittent outages for more than a week.

Only about 150 people live in Skykomish, but about 200 more in the surrounding area are in the same situation.

“Lights went out, I think, last Wednesday. Came back on Friday or Saturday, and then they went back out Tuesday I think,” Skykomish resident Chayse Weber said.

KIRO Newsradio reporter James Lynch said he could hear the hum of generators all over the town, as most of the people who live in Skykomish have backup generators.

Skykomish Library offers warm refuge for community

But for those who don’t have power, workers at the Skykomish Library are lending a hand and offering a warm place.

The crew brought in a large generator for previously scheduled work, so they decided to share it with the community. Residents can charge devices at the public library.

“We can be a little bit of a hot spot for the town, power, heat, light. So hopefully we’ll get this up and running today,” Sam Meyer, the Facilities and Construction Manager at the King County Library System, said.

Chris Martin, the Client Technology Services Manager at the King County Library System, said the library will be operating at regular hours.

“Our branch will be able to operate normally. So there’ll be computing, heat, charging abilities, and those sorts of things,” Martin shared.

Puget Sound Energy hopes to restore power sometime around midnight, but first, crews have to get through rough terrain and downed trees.

The source of the power outage remains undetermined, but strong winds and rain have plagued Washington for the past few days.

As of 1 p.m. Thursday, 45,267 people in Washington are without power, according to poweroutage.com. Island County is getting hit the hardest, followed by Snohomish County and Pierce County.

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