UPDATE | 1:40PM: PSE said they brought in additional crews and have a full complement of damage assessment teams, road crews, tree crews and hundreds of support staff working to restore power. They have also dispatched helicopters to assess damage where conditions have made ground access difficult to impossible. Approximately 158,000 customers remain without power.
According to the PSE outage map, power was restored to a big chunk of Fall City and North Bend customers. The Wilderness Rim area remains without power with multiple trees and some power poles down. The number of homes without power in North Bend is down to approximately 1,100. Fall City and Snoqualmie each have about 100 customers without power. In Carnation and Duvall approximately 4,000 are still impacted.
ORIGINAL STORY:
Around 6AM, January 6, 2019 Puget Sound Energy (PSE) reported they had 218,000 customers who lost power during a short but powerful overnight windstorm. The wind peaked between 2-3AM, with gusts up to 60MPH reported around the Puget Sound region.
Wilderness Rim in North Bend was hit hard. Resident Kathy Hyland said the wind blew so hard she thought her kitchen windows might blow in. Hyland said they lost power and has heard reports from neighbors of approximately 10 trees down across Cedar Falls Road, with Uplands Way blocked as well.
Some Facebook posts also reported wires down across roads in the Wilderness Rim area and lights out in downtown North Bend.
According to PSE and Tanner Electric, there were about 2,000 North Bend customers without power; another 100 in Snoqualmie and about 1200 Fall City homes with no power. In Preston that number was about 175. Snoqualmie Ridge was not impacted.
Farther north, Carnation and Duvall were also hard hit – about 4,000 customers were without power.
PSE opened its Emergency Coordination Center and local storm bases to coordinate restoration efforts, but warned the outages could last a while. PSE said via social media, “While we will be working as quickly as we safely can, we expect that some customers may be without power for multiple days. Thank you for your patience.”
North Bend Ace Hardware reported they had power and had supplies stocked. Both the Shell and 76 gas stations in downtown North Bend were reportedly open with working pumps.
Sunday is expected to be a breezy day, but the region is on the back end of the storm that rolled through overnight.
