Cleanup and power restoration continue from storm’s aftermath

After a week of snow and ice, western Washington faced more severe weather with high winds Saturday mroning.  Now, the aftermath of the storm has left residents still without power because of trees falling on power lines. 

After this week’s ice storm, many trees could have additional falling limbs. High winds from early Saturday impacted trees by snapping their branches, then falling onto lines and causing local power outages. 

On Saturday morning, a utility pole fell in the Capitol Hill neighborhood on 10^th Avenue East, just south of East Blaine Street after a tree fell onto power lines because of the morning’s windstorm. Police shut down 10^th Avenue for crews to replace the pole and stabilize electrical and Metro Transit trolley wires, said police.

On Friday evening, crews from Puget Sound Energy restored power for about 107,000 customers. Almost 220,000 were still in the dark.

Rain and higher temperatures melted most of the snow and ice on roadways, which helped the crews get to areas that were hard to reach.

• Slideshow: Tree takes down utility pole in Capitol Hill
• Slideshow: Tree falls down onto Queen Anne billboard

As of 11 a.m., the improved weather conditions allowed PSE crews to restore power to 262,000 customers, but about 194,000 are still without power.

Snohomish County Public Utility District still had 8,000 customers without, and the morning winds caused more power outages and increased to the number of Tacoma Power customers without power to 2,400. 

According to PSE, they will anticipate about 200 crews from up to seven states to help clean up the area and to restore power for customers. PSE’s Andy Wappler spoke with KIRO 7 and said the power crews are out and there are over 900 line workers.

“We started bringing crews on Monday and Tuesday from British Columbia, eastern Washington and Oregon,” said Wappler. “And today we have crews from Washington, Oregon, California, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Montana and Alaska.”

Even though restored power came back for Puget Sound customers, some may still be in the dark until next week. It is still expected that some areas won’t have power restored until Monday or Tuesday, according to PSE.