ABERDEEN, Wash. -- John Minkler has worked at Weyerhaeuser for 22 years. He said it used to be that buildings closed and a few workers were laid off when times were tough. But even this company veteran never thought the mill would close for good.

"I was going to work tonight at 4:45 and I just got out of the shower (at) 1:30 this afternoon. And my boss called me up and said 'we're done,'" he said. "It's tough. It always is."

Forest products supplier Weyerhaeuser Co. will immediately close two mills in southwestern Washington due to weak market conditions, with the loss of 211 jobs, the company announced Monday.

Shutting down permanently are a sawmill and the Pacific Veneer mill, both in Aberdeen. Weyerhaeuser said 196 hourly workers and 25 salaried employees will lose their jobs.

But it's not just the workers who will be affected; the entire city of Aberdeen will feel the ripple effects.

Jerri Wilkerson lives right next door to the veneer will. Her brothers and husband are contractors who depend on the wood the mills produced.

"It's quiet. It's kind of sad," she said.

In a statement, Tom Gideon, vice president of forest products, said Weyerhaeuser officials "fully understand the major effect of these changes for our employees, contractors and the community, and we will work constructively in the weeks and months ahead to prepare for the transition.

"Unfortunately, the current extraordinarily weak market conditions require that we take decisive action," Gideon said.

The company plans to offer severance, job counseling and other benefits to the affected workers. But Minkler said he'd rather wake up tomorrow and head into work.

"I was told by the old-timers that every 20 years, the lumber industry takes punch. And this is devastating. This is knockout punch," he said.

Robbie Davis, a 38-year employee with Weyerhaeuser, said he sensed as long as two years ago that the sawmill was doomed, because it was producing at its peak but the company did not continue to invest in the facility.

"We had the best safety record, environmental record," Davis told The Daily World of Aberdeen. "We did what was expected of us and instead, this happened."

Gov. Chris Gregoire called the shutdown of the two Aberdeen mills "a sad day in our state."

"I strongly urge Congress and the state Legislature to move quickly on economic stimulus packages that will help get Washingtonians back to work and get this economy back on track," Gregoire said.

The governor said she had spoken to officials at the state's Employment Security Department, and she urged affected Weyerhaeuser workers to contact the agency for assistance.

"Our highest priority is to help those workers find other good jobs as quickly as possible," Gregoire said in a statement.

The contracting U.S housing market has hurt forest products companies, drying up demand for construction lumber and other wood products. Weyerhaeuser shares declined 58 percent in 2008.

Company spokesman Anthony Chavez said Weyerhaeuser would entertain offers to purchase the veneer plant, but he was not optimistic, considering the soft market for plywood. The thin layers of wood veneer made at the mill were pressed and glued together to make plywood.

The sawmill will not reopen even if demand for lumber goes up in the future, Chavez said.

"If the market turns around, we feel we can meet customer demand with new facilities in Longview and Oregon in the future," Chavez said. The company's Santiam sawmill is located east of Lebanon, Ore.

Last August, Weyerhaeuser announced it was cutting about 1,500 employees, or 6.3 percent of its global work force, as part of an ongoing plan to scale back operations to focus on timberlands and wood products. About 1,000 of the job cuts were at company headquarters, the rest at offices throughout the country.

The company has taken several actions to reduce its size in recent years, including the $6 billion sale of its containerboard unit to International Paper Co., which closed last summer, and combining its fine paper business with Domtar Corp.