Storm pounds Wahkiakum

Powerful wind swept through Wahkiakum, knocking out power to the entire county and sending trees crashing across roads and power lines Sunday morning.

The winds roared in during the early morning hours on Sunday. The National Weather Service clocked wind gust of over 60 mph in Astoria.

The steady blow knocked down trees everywhere. Around 3:30 a.m. the Bonneville Power lost is main feeder line into the Grays River substation. The outage forced Wahkiakum PUD to shut down the county grid while the BPA crew repaired and reconnected.

“We had to shut down power to everyone,” said PUD Manager David Tramblie. “It was a safety issue. We couldn’t take a chance that when the BPA recharged, we might have a line down we didn’t know about.”

A house belonging to John Peterson on Pleasant Point Road in Skamokawa felt the brunt of a wind blast. Two trees went down across the road in front of his house, taking out the power lines. One tree also took out a portion of Peterson’s fence. Another tree broke off and landed near Peterson’s neighbor’s hedge.

Vista Park barely escaped damage. The wind toppled a large alder that had fallen between one of the park’s yurts and a small pickup camper. The tree landed mere inches from the yurt.

“I can’t imagine what stopped it from rolling into the yurt and damaging it,” said park Manager Steve McClain. “Just a few inches are all it would have taken.”

Tramblie said downed trees and limbs had caused most of the power outages. The PUD and county and state road crews were called out early as well.

“We had our first line crews out at about 4 a.m.,” said Tramblie, “and everybody was in the field shortly after that.”

“They called me about 5 a.m. this morning,” said PUD crew member Doug Condon, “and I was here by 7 a.m. I can tell it’s going to be a long day.”

Condon said he and PUD linemen Scott Cameron and Mark Elliot had several more power lines to repair on Middle Valley and East Valley Roads.

“They also had to replace a pole on Foster Road,” said Tramblie, “and they had to remove a huge tree lying across one power line before the BPA could recharge the system."

Tramblie said his crew had to inspect every line in the county for loose or downed wires.

“The BPA was actually giving us some headaches,” said Tramblie.

Tramblie said the BPA wanted to recharge the Wahkiakum grid before the PUD was ready. The PUD had to tell the BPA to hold off powering up the system because they needed the time to inspect their lines.

“We just didn’t know what was down, so, to keep customers safe we had to do a visual inspection,” Tramblie said.

The PUD said their crews worked into the night on Sunday and by Monday there were only three houses left to connect up.

“One house had a tree fall on its power line and the owner had to call an electrician before we could reconnect them,” Tramblie said.