Winds buffet Washington

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The Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) - Winds gusting to more than 70 mph blew trees and branches onto power lines and cut electricity to nearly 85,000 homes and businesses across Western Washington on Monday.

The number of electrical outages grew as winds rose throughout the region, starting well before daybreak.

One of the earliest outages was before dawn around Monroe, where about 8,000 customers lost power for a time after three substations went off line, said Neil Neroutsos, a spokesman for the Snohomish County Public Utility District.

That problem was resolved fairly quickly, but later storm-related problems cut power to about 1,400 customers in the Lake Stevens area, Neroutsos said.

The region's largest utility, Puget Sound Energy, had roughly 37,000 customers in the dark in nine counties, with Whatcom and Thurston hit the hardest, spokeswoman Christina Mills said.

More than 15,000 customers were without electricity in the Grays Harbor County Public Utility District, spokeswoman Liz Anderson reported.

''We don't have an estimate on restoration time,'' Anderson said, ''but it's going to take hours, not days, and should be well into the evening for some customers.''

At least 9,300 Cowlitz County PUD customers were in the dark, along with 8,000 in the Clallam County PUD, utility officials said.

Seattle City Light reported nearly 3,900 customers without power in the Burien area because of a failure in a feeder line and more than 100 within Seattle for other reasons.

Eastern Washington also had problems. Spokane-based Avista Utililties said about 1,140 customers were without power in Eastern Washington and northern Idaho from wind-related power outages.

There was no estimate as of late afternoon when crews would be able to restore power. Homes without power included about 345 near Colville and about 683 near Grangeville, Idaho, with scattered outages in Spokane, Davenport and Deer Park.

Windy weather was blamed for outages that hit about 2,000 homes and businesses north of Vancouver, Wash., mostly in and around Yacolt, Amboy and Ridgefield, said Mick Shutt, a spokesman for the Clark County Public Utility District.

Wind gusts reported by the National Weather Service by noon included 71 mph at Hoquiam, 68 mph in Bellingham, 62 at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station near Oak Harbor, 56 at Friday Harbor, 55 at Quillayute on the Olympic Peninsula, 53 at McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma, 48 at La Center, 46 in Kelso, 45 at Burlington, and 41 at Olympia and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Snoqualmie Pass east of Seattle had wet snow and slush on a 20-mile stretch of Interstate 90 from the summit to Easton, transportation officials said.

Additional snow removal crews were summoned to keep the road clear for holiday traffic. The weather service was predicting more than 6 inches of snow over the pass by Monday night.

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