Windstorm lashes western Pacific Northwest, felling trees and knocking out power

A pow­er­ful wind­storm rolled through the Pacif­ic North­west today, felling trees, knock­ing out pow­er, and forc­ing the clo­sure of roads and bridges.

Gusts of more than six­ty miles per hour were report­ed in many places, like Seat­tle’s Dis­cov­ery Park, which record­ed a peak gust of six­ty-six miles per hour at 4 PM.

Winds were also fierce on the Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon coasts, where even more pow­er­ful gusts were reported.

The Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion shut down the Ever­green Point Float­ing Bridge across Lake Wash­ing­ton and the Hood Canal Bridge due to high winds. No esti­mate was giv­en for when either might reopen. Part of High­way 99/Aurora Avenue North also had to be closed due to downed pow­er lines.

A large truck tipped over on the Taco­ma Nar­rows Bridge, neces­si­tat­ing an emer­gency response and a cleanup. For­tu­nate­ly, no one was hurt.

Sev­er­al Wash­ing­ton State Fer­ry runs were can­celled or run­ning behind sched­ule.

Sound Tran­sit advised rid­ers to expect long delays.

“Please expect delays today on all Sound Tran­sit Express Sun­day routes as a result of high winds and fall­en trees caus­ing block­ages on mul­ti­ple roads ways and high­ways. Vis­it the WSDOT web­site or check media reports for updat­ed infor­ma­tion,” the agency said in an emailed alert.

A falling tree in Seat­tle’s Seward Park crushed a vehi­cle with occu­pants inside, killing a man. A tod­dler also inside the vehi­cle sur­vived and was res­cued by passers­by. The tod­dler was tak­en to Har­borview Med­ical Center.

More than 200,000 were said to be with­out pow­er in the greater Seat­tle area. More than half of those are cus­tomers of Puget Sound Ener­gy. PSE says it could be some time before every­one affect­ed gets their pow­er back. Crews can­not work when con­di­tions don’t allow, and it’s still pret­ty blus­tery out in a lot of places.

Sno­homish PUD had at least 27,000 cus­tomers with­out pow­er. Both sub­ur­ban and rur­al neigh­bor­hoods were affect­ed, accord­ing to the util­i­ty’s out­age map. Taco­ma Pow­er’s out­age map like­wise shows places all over the coun­ty with­out power.

Author­i­ties are remind­ing res­i­dents to report and stay away from downed pow­er lines, avoid grilling indoors (it can cause death due to car­bon monox­ide poi­son­ing), and delay or can­cel trips if at all pos­si­ble due to unsafe road conditions.