EVERETT, Wash. — The region’s first big storm of the season is blowing through western Washington Saturday night.
In addition to rain, the National Weather Service says a wind advisory is in effect until 4 a.m. Sunday morning. The greater Seattle area could see wind gusts around 40 to 50 miles per hour with sustained winds from 20 to 30 miles per hour.
Local utilities, including Snohomish County Public Utility District (PUD), have been tracking the storm, because it’s packing winds that can potentially push down branches, and in some cases, vulnerable trees into power lines.
They planned ahead.
“You never know quite how the forecast is going to play out,” Erica Keene, a spokesperson for Snohomish County PUD, said.
But when gusts of 40 to 50 miles per hour were forecasted for the Puget Sound region, Keene said the PUD did not wait to call in extra utility crews.
“We do have extra crews on staff this weekend because of the forecast,” Keene said. “We station them where we think the winds are expected to hit the most, but we do have crews in each part of our county.”
When the utility is alerted to power outages, either by customers, or newly installed smart equipment which they’re in the process of rolling out, utility crews get dispatched.
“Our energy control center monitors where our crews are,” Keene added. “They monitor all of our circuits and transmission lines.”
Keene said, acting as a kind of mission control, the center identifies outages and moves utility crews where they’re needed.
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