Crews restoring power after storm blows through
In Grays Harbor County where winds of about 70 mph buffeted the area late Monday as the storm came ashore, more than 13,000 people lost power overnight.
Puget Sound Energy saw a total of about 9,000 customers without power, and Snohomish PUD saw several scattered outages. Seattle City light said there were no outages as of Tuesday morning.
The heavy rain caused flooding along the Skokomish River in Mason County, and a five-mile section of Highway 101 was closed for several hours due to flooding and mudslides Monday near Hoodsport. It reopened to one lane of alternating traffic just before noon.
State Department of transportation officials said they need to make sure the hillside is stable before the highway can be re-opened.
Several roads in east King County were closed because of water over the roadways.
Downed trees were also blocking some side streets throughout the area. In Bellingham, where winds gusted to 66 mph, a 60-foot long tree came crashing down across Dolly Witt's two cars in her driveway.
She says the winds were intense.
"It was terrific. It was almost rocking the house a little bit," she said.
Down the street a bit, another tree toppled and ripped down power lines, causing one of 100 separate outages across the area.
"It's not fun," said Allyson Heller, who was briefly stranded behind a fallen tree. "And we don't know how long this will be, so, at least we all know to have generators."
Here are the peak gusts recorded late Monday:
- Hoquiam: 70 mph
- Astoria: 66 mph
- Bellingham: 66 mph
- Oak Harbor: 57 mph
- Forks: 55 mph
- Alki Beach: 55 mph
- Aberdeen: 53 mph
- Anacortes: 53 mph
- Everett: 47 mph
- Friday Harbor: 46 mph
- 520 Floating Bridge: 43 mph
- Seattle (Sea-Tac): 43 mph
- Olympia: 41 mph
- Everett: 41 mph
- Gig Harbor: 40 mph
That was in the lowlands. Up in the mountains, it was like a hurricane. Incredibly, Crystal Mountain ski resort recorded a wind gust of 115 mph (Category 3 hurricane strength!), while Mt. Baker experienced 88 mph winds and Alpental at Snoqualmie hit 57 mph.
But the worst of the winds were over, and all the wind advisories and warnings have been cancelled.
Flood Warnings remain in effect for the Skokomish (major flooding), Satsop (moderate flooding), Puyallup (minor flooding) and Stillaguamish Rivers. All other rivers have come off of flood warning as the rain abates.
Do we ever dry out?
It will still be rainy and breezy on Tuesday, but not nearly as bad as we've seen the last two days. However, a third storm is looming for late Wednesday into Thursday. This might bring a third round of wind on par with these two, but we'll keep an eye on it.
A series of storms continues to move through over the weekend and into early next week. Some long range models are trying to shift the West Coast into a drier pattern over Thanksgiving, but others keep it still wet, if not as stormy, next week.