Two people killed, at least 471,000 customers in Washington State without power from windstorm

Residents of British Columbia’s South Coast weren’t alone on dealing with being in the dark following Saturday’s windstorm.

Like what was experienced in B.C., high winds from the potent storm system caused trees to tumble and electric wires to flail, and heavy rain caused localized flooding.

Two deaths resulting from falling trees and branches during windstorm were reported, with both fatalities located near Tacoma.

According to KOMO 4 TV, a father who was driving his three-year-old daughter was killed when a tree fell onto his car. A short while later, a 10-year-old girl was killed after being struck by a falling tree branch.

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At least 471,000 customers in Washington State were without power at the peak of the storm with Snohomish County Pubic Utility District (SCPUD) reporting 175,000 outages in the northern half of the state, Puget Sound Energy (PSE) reporting 238,000 outages in the Seattle metropolitan area and Seattle City Light (SCL) reporting 58,000 outages in the City of Seattle.

These figures do not include outages incurred within areas managed by smaller electricity utility companies, most of which have not publicly reported their outage numbers.

Unlike B.C. Hydro, which is the provincial crown corporation that manages all of B.C.’s electric utilities, a number of public and private utility companies oversee and operate Washington State’s electric grid.

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By Sunday evening, maintenance crews slashed the number of outages to 25,000 customers with SCPUD, 70,000 customers with PSE and 21,000 customers with SCL. As of early Wednesday afternoon, the number of affected customers were reduced to 11,500 in SCPUD and 1,100 in PSE. No outages remain within SCL jurisdiction.

Back in B.C., approximately 100 customers in the Lower Mainland were still without power on Wednesday morning. At the peak of the outage, 710,000 customers in B.C. were affected.

Snohomish County Pubic Utility District restoration response times

Saturday at 3:45 p.m. – 175,000 customers
Saturday at 6:46 p.m. – 120,000 customers
Sunday at 5:41 a.m. – 88,000 customers
Sunday at 8:13 a.m. – 70,000 customers
Sunday at 10:15 a.m. – 60,000 customers
Sunday at 9:37 p.m. – 25,000 customers
Monday at 1:44 p.m. – 23,000 customers
Monday at 9:23 p.m. – 22,500 customers
Tuesday at 4:20 a.m. – 20,500 customers
Tuesday at 4:10 p.m. – 18,500 customers
Tuesday at 8:03 p.m. – 16,125 customers
Tuesday at 9:54 p.m. – 14,500 customers
Wednesday at 6:37 a.m. – 13,500 customers
Wednesday at 7:42 a.m. – 12,500 customers
Wednesday at 12:12 p.m. – 11,500 customers