High winds had thousands without power across Western Washington on Tuesday
At the peak of outages, over 65,000 Puget Sound Energy customers were impacted between Bellingham and Olympia, along with thousands of others in areas of Seattle, Everett, and Tacoma.
Windy weather kept crews busy all morning long. East Pierce Fire says their firefighters responded to 24 emergency calls between midnight and 7 a.m., the bulk of which were for downed trees and power lines.
The Lake Holiday neighborhood in Gig Harbor saw strong winds cause uprooted trees knock out power.
Two power poles were snapped like match sticks on Kenney Asmussen’s block.
“A lot of wind. We’ve never had anything like that around here,” said Asmussen. He says he felt his house start to shake and tree limbs started hitting his roof around midnight, Tuesday.
“I’m from the Bay area and lived though the earthquake of ‘89. It felt a lot like that. Everything shook and I don’t know if it was the amount of wind or all the trees falling at once. I’m not sure but it was like an earthquake. We came out with our flashlights but it was really just too dark. I had no idea all of this so it’s been quite an experience,” said Asmussen.
“There’s a skylight on the other side of the house we can’t see from here,” he added. “It’s still intact but it shattered it all.”
Peninsula Light Company is the provider for the Lake Holiday neighborhood. Just under 350 people, like Kenney, lost power.
Puget Sound Energy spokesperson, Andrew Padula explained how the rainy days before the windstorm made it easier for trees to topple in the wind.
“If there’s a lot of heavy rain or days of rain that could create the ground to be very saturated and if the wind starts to blow those trees could topple easily,” Padula said.
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