Strong winds in Fall City turned deadly Monday morning after Eastside Fire and Rescue crews responded to a report of a tree that had fallen on a woman in her 50s.
“We had a tree that impacted the person here on the property and that person was struck fatally by the tree,” said Catherine Breault of Eastside Fire and Rescue. She said crews tried to save the woman when they got there.
“CPR was performed but unfortunately they did not survive the incident,” she said. “It’s really unfortunate today that we lost the life of somebody important to this community.” The King County Sheriff’s Office is heading the investigation and has not released the woman’s name.
“We just always want to remind people that trees fall in our area, especially in these high winds - especially with the wet weather - just stay home and stay safe if you can,” Breault said. The powerful winds impacted thousands of people across King County. At one point more than 30,000 people were without power.
“Because we’ve had a lot of rain recently, saturated ground, and then the conditions we had last summer of some of the trees being really dried out so that’s a bad combination for power outages throughout the area,” said Melanie Coon of Puget Sound Energy. The winds were so strong in Kent that they brought down a power pole, closing a road for hours.
“I heard a loud bang so I thought there was a car accident or something. I came out to look and I saw a big spark and then I looked and I saw this power line right here, fell completely onto the road, and then about a minute later another spark went, and then the lights right here just fell over and all the power lines and branches are just littered across the street,” said Trey Martin, who was close by when it happened. He said no one at his workplace, LGH, was hurt, but it knocked out internet and phone service, bringing business there to a halt.
“It’s our whole business at this point so we can’t contact anyone from across the country to get orders out or anything to call our customers at all,” Martin said.