March Windstorm Updates
9:50 AM March 15, 2016
This morning, we are now below 40 customers without power, however these are among the most time-consuming to restore. Ludlow Bay Road has proven to be one of our more problematic locales to completely restore. Overnight, a fresh Mason PUD3 crew blew through the south part of the county, reconnecting Thorndyke Rd, Payne Road, Lemands Road and Thousand Trails Road in great time. Many thanks to Mason PUD3 for their assistance!
Yesterday afternoon we lost power in part of downtown PT for several hours. Another fresher crew from contractor Michals got onto the scene at Heller Fountain and got power restored at around 7:15PM. Port Townsend, for the most part, didn’t get many outages as a result of the Sunday storm. However, it’s possible that our infrastructure was damaged during that event and finally failed.
With the degree to which the ground is saturated, leaning trees like large alders can come down with the force of their own weight, pulling wires down with them. No wind required. Tree trimming and removal has been critical in this outage (thank you, Asplundh and Kemp West). The forecast is favorable for a drying period and some sun in the next few days that will hopefully put this latest series of storm events to bed.
There are still numerous small outages we are working to re-energize today.
Ludlow Bay Road – A tree crew in onsite removing a massive tree. Mason PUD3 will return later to get the last 27 customers reconnected late this morning/early afternoon.
East Maude and East Kincaid (Irondale) – Crew currently onsite. Restoration is expected this morning.
Old Fort Townsend Road – Otto Street – Crew onsite. Restoration expected later this morning.
Center Road – Restoration expected later today.
Cedar Street (Coyle) – New outage report, under investigation.
Lindsey Hill Road – Restoration expect at the end of the day.
As always, estimated times of restoration are estimates. Situations frequently change causing us to pull crews to other emergencies, wait for or retrieve additional equipment or respond to new, larger outages.
If you do not see your location on the list above or know someone out of power not on this list, we need to know. Give us a call at 385-5800 so we can wrap up this outage and get everyone back in power. Thank you all again for your patience!
2PM March 14 (Updates a previous 1PM update with numerous changes)
South Point Road, Bolton Peninsula, Werner Road and West Valley Road have been restored. Work is slow going at other locations as there is more damage in some areas than initially assessed. Crews are still making their way from south to north.
Currently, there are crews at or in route to:
Coyle Peninsula outages (currently on Payne Road).
Ludlow Bay Road has large trees leaning over power lines. Will require additional tree crew work this afternoon. Line crew temporarily redeployed.
Hubbard Creek Road has a broken underground termination that will require additional work this afternoon/evening. Several hours of additional work.
Olele Point Road has a crew working currently.
Jensen Road will be restored possibly early evening.
Old Fort Townsend Road later this evening or tomorrow.
There are new outages: on the Coyle Peninsula (off Hazel Pt Road) and in Irondale (Kinkaid and East Maude). The former could be addressed this afternoon. The latter sometime this evening.
Calls us if you don’t recognize your outage on the above list if you haven’t contacted us already.
Again, our goal is to get everyone back up as soon as possible. New issues are commonly discovered as crews work through each situation and every situation is somewhat different and all are potentially dangerous. All estimated times of restoration are tentative and subject to change due to conditions on the ground.
9:00AM March 14 (Corrected at 10AM)
We made progress overnight, particularly in the south part of the district. But many scattered outages of 50 or more customers remain across the district this morning. Additional tree crews have been pulled in to assist in helping us get to poles so we can re-wire spans that came down and damage done to poles. Depending on factors in the field, generally those areas with the largest number of customers out will get the highest priority at this time in an outage.
This has been a long, difficult stretch for our crews who have been working hard with very little sleep since the first outages began on Wednesday night. We greatly appreciate your patience as we steady work to get you back online.
Outages that remain from south to north (and will roughly be restored in that order):
Coyle Peninsula – Thousand Trails Road, Payne Road, Lemonds Road are out. Tree crew will be onsite later this morning. Line crew in area.
Lindsey Hill Road – Crews taking breakfast break should be restored by noon if no additional issues are encountered. Tree crews on the way. Thorndyke Road – A crew is currently onsite. Restoration likely before noon.
Ludlow Bay Road – Out, need trees to be removed, crew should be onsite later this morning, restoration this afternoon.
Hubbard Creek – Madrona Vista Road – out, restoration likely later today.
Olele Point Road – Trees and lines down. Restoration will be later today. Crew heading that way later this morning/early afternoon.
Werner Road – Trees and lines down. Currently no estimated time of restoration. Crew will address this area later today.
West Valley Road – Crew onsite at this time. Several customers still out near Old Eaglemount Road.
Jensen Road (Marrowstone Island) – May or may not be on. Will be verifying later today (CORRECTION: All Jensen Road is out. Should be fixed this afternoon).
Old Fort Townsend Road – Elks Lodge out.
All estimates are subject to changes based on field conditions and no emergency call outs. If you do not see your area on this list, please call us at 385-5800 to report your outage. As we have stated before, we will work until everyone is back in power. Thank you!
6:45PM March 13
We are currently responding to remaining outages across the district, primarily in south county. At the peak of the storm, nearly everyone south of Port Townsend experienced some power issues or outages. Due to a tree toppling onto a transmission line near Four Corners we had to de-energize two substations temporarily to remove it, dropping power to several thousand customers. Since then, many areas have been restored, but overall there are still numerous lines down, trees leaning on wires and south of SR 104 and east of Quilcene is out of power. There is still a lot of work for our crews who have had a very busy week.
This storm, which was highly anticipated to be worse than the March 10 event, missed us comparatively. At the peak of the storm outages, perhaps over 250,000 customers across Puget Sound lost power. Earlier this evening, PSE was reporting over 170,000 customers out of power and Snohomish PUD reported 35,000. With the soils as rain-saturated as they are, it could have been a lot worse here.
Areas that we will be focusing our repairs and restoration:
Anderson Lake Road
South 7th Avenue (Port Hadlock)
NW Marrowstone Island
SE Marrowstone Island
South Point and Thorndyke Rd
Bolton Peninsula
Coyle Peninsula
Crews will work 24/7 to restore your power after this event. If you do not see your area in the list above or have not contacted us, please call customer service at 385-5800 if you are still out.
7:15AM March 11
Great progress made overnight! Jefferson crews are getting back to work after a short break from working since the beginning of the storm. Overnight, they worked through numerous West Valley Road problems to get everyone back up. Almost all of Port Townsend was restored with some lingering small outages just out of town and on Cape George Road. Small outages still remain on Quimper Peninsula and will need to be addressed individually.
Overnight, the Lewis PUD crew replaced/repaired poles and power on Dabob Post Office Road and at Hazel Point and moved their way thru Thorndyke Road. All of the Coyle Peninsula is now back in power. They also worked through Snow Creek Road getting customers on the shores of Lake Leland back up. They will take a short break and stay down south to fix the Bolton Peninsula issues today.
There is a new, switching outage in Port Hadlock off of Chimacum Road (Blanche, Christney Road, Olympic Greens) that we are doing to facilitate some repairs on Church Road. This has just been completed. This crew should be heading to Marrowstone Island outages for restoration on Fort Gate and Disney Roads.
Major areas that remain out:
Bolton Peninsula – Crew on the way Disney Road and Fort Gate – Marrowstone Island End of Olympus Boulevard and Olele Point taps (Mats Mats Bay) Bywater Bay and Seven Sisters Larson Lake
Crews will be tackling these last remaining clusters of customers before hitting the one and two customer outages. We also know of numerous small outages almost everywhere in the district. And will not stop until everyone has their power back. Please call us at (360) 385-5800 if you do not see your area on this list.
4:50PM
Some recent success! The Lewis PUD crew is moving forward on replacing the Dabob Post Office Road and Hazel Point poles and will likely need to work into the night hours. A Jefferson PUD crew is currently on West Valley Road and another JPUD crew just energized much of the south shore of Port Ludlow and is now working on Paradise Bay Road.
Still there are large areas that remain without power (in no particular order).
Disney Road (Marrowstone Island)
Tala Point to Hood Canal Bridge (Paradise Bay)
S-W Streets in Port Townsend (near Fort Worden)
Downtown Port Townsend including Washington Street
Bolton Peninsula (East Quilcene)
Black Bear and Bear Cub Road
Anderson Lake Road
West Valley Road
Olele Point Road
South 7th St and Thomas Drive (Irondale)
Dabob Post Office Road
Thorndyke Road
There are a lot of small individual circuits that are out as well. If your area is not on this list and you haven’t called, we may not know you are out of power. PLease call us at 385-5800.
Crews will continue to work until they need rest and will adopt a rotating schedule into and through the night. We will continue to work until every customer is back in power.
3PM
Lewis PUD is here, been briefed by operations staff and is headed to repair/replace poles at Dabob Post Office Road and Hazel Point. Thank you, Lewis PUD!
Also, most of Port Townsend is back online minus downtown and S-W Streets between Morgan Hill and Fort Worden State Park.
12PM
Unfortunately, we do not have any estimated restoration times for any particular community or location at this time. We are working on it and should have more specific information this afternoon.
Also, a correction. Not all of the Coyle Peninsula has been restored. Near the south end there is a damaged pole that will require significant work.
11:15AM
Storm is still in progress. Winds are starting to diminish district-wide, but still strong enough to cause damage. We expect additional outages this morning, and potentially this afternoon based on the weather forecast advisories.
The good news is we picked up a crew to assist from Lewis PUD who should be ready to help restore by this afternoon.
Also Cape George Colony and the Coyle Peninsula has been restored. So we are making some progress.
In general, crews and foremen are still assessing damage with our superintendent, dispatch and other managers and are developing a restoration plan for the major damage. In some cases, we may have to do some switching to get customers online and return to fix the damage. Crews need to do a preliminary investigation to see if they need additional equipment or supplies to fix a job and often need to leave to get what they need. The general strategy is to get the most people on the quickest, starting from the substation out to distribution and then to individual service taps. All of this takes significant time, particularly when there is so much that needs to be done. Based on prior outages, some customers may not get their power restored for well over 24 hours.
We greatly appreciate all the kind and supportive calls as well as your patience as we recover from this major windstorm.
8:20AM
The National Weather Service has extended its HIGH WIND WARNING from 9AM to 12 noon today and has tagged on a WIND ADVISORY from noon until 4PM this afternoon. A wind gust of 66 mph was measured at Point Wilson in the last hour, the highest so far during this event. This means that more outage issues beyond what we are already dealing with should be expected over the next 8 hours. The duration of this storm is making it difficult to restore power and keep it on.
A tree crew and an additional line crew (Michels) have been called in and are currently in the field assisting PUD crews. Additional utility crews are being called for their availability to assist.
The current outage map online is being updated when possible. At this time it is difficult to assess the number of customers out of power as we continue our assessment of the damage and order of restoration. Once we complete our assessment after the storm is over, we will have a better handle on time of restoration.
6:30AM
Storm still causing outages. The latest areas reporting outages within the past hour:
- Downtown Port Townsend
- Cape George Colony
- Gardiner
- Snow Creek
Effectively all corners of the district have been impacted by the storm. High winds still being recorded off Point Wilson (the latest gust over 60 mph).
Mason PUD1, Mason 3, and PSE are all reporting major outages as well at this time.
Due to the widespread nature of this event and degree of damage we have assessed to this point, many customers will likely remain out longer than 24 hours.
5AM
Major windstorm in progress is causing widespread outages across east Jefferson County. Crews are in the field and staff is at the Operations Center assessing damage and answering customer calls. Additional crews have been called to assist.
At this point in a major outage event we have to assess the damage and the order in which power needs to be restored. Areas in general that are currently out include all or portions of:
- Marrowstone Island.
- Port Townsend (Hastings to the PT Paper Mill)
- Irondale
- Port Hadlock
- Chimacum
- Coyle Peninsula
- Shine area (west and South of Port Ludlow)
Please call us if you are not in these areas listed above. We do not currently have times of restoration for any of these areas. Hopefully, we will later this morning.
Hood Canal Bridge is currently closed due to the high winds. Gusts of over 60 mph occurred at Point Wilson starting at 5AM and are still increasing in strength. The storm is not over and is still very dangerous. Avoid the roads if possible.
We will report progress here or on our Twitter feed as it becomes available.