December 15, 2006

BIG, BIG WINDS
High winds and water-logged ground combine to fell trees, cut power throughout region

By THE CHRONICLE staff

     Gusts of up to 63 miles per hour in The Dalles — 78 miles per hour in Wasco — shook houses, downed trees and cut off electric service early Friday morning.
High wind warnings remained in effect until 10 a.m. this morning.
     Peak gusts occurred just after midnight in The Dalles, said Jim Smith of the National Weather Service in Pendleton. The 63-mile-per-hour gust occurred at 12:09 a.m. at the Dallesport weather station.
     Shaniko experienced winds earlier, reporting a 62-mile-per-hour gust Thursday around 8:30 p.m., Smith noted.
     “They had gusts over 50 [mph] until 11 p.m.,” he said.
     Incident command was established at the emergency dispatch center in The Dalles, then moved to The Dalles City Police Department as more agencies became involved, said Police Chief Jay Waterbury.
     “We had two officers on duty and we called out six additional,” Waterbury noted. “Public Works had eight people called out and the [Wasco County] sheriff’s office had a total of two on and called one out. Most of the stuff we’re aware of, the damage happened inside the city.”
     Falling trees caused electrical power disruptions to wide area of The Dalles. At one point, more than 100 blocks were without power, said a police press release.
     Eight separate homes were struck with falling trees with damage ranging from minor to major damage to roof structures.
     Emergency services personnel responded to each home and checked the residents’ welfare. No injuries were reported.
     Residents of four houses were asked to voluntarily evacuate because of the extent of damage.
     A number of The Dalles’ streets were totally blocked by fallen trees. The operation of at least one cellular telephone carrier was disrupted by the storm.
“One thing to keep in mind is if you look at the ground you see how saturated the ground is lately,” Waterbury said, as an explanation of why so many trees were down.

Public works crews busy
     “We had reports of 26 trees down,” said Bill Barrier of the city’s public works department, “Some were in the street, some on cars, and some up against houses.”
     He said seven crew members were out clearing streets, starting at 1 a.m. and working through the night.
     In cases where trees fell across the power lines, Barrier said, the city worked with crews from Northern Wasco County PUD. “They restored the power, we cleaned [the trees] out, pushed them out of the right of way.”
     Barrier said Friday’s early morning storm was more about wind than rain. “The flooding problem yesterday overwhelmed our storm sewer system,” he said, “but that doesn’t seem to be the problem this morning.”
     Crews will continue cleanup work through the day.
     “We advise folks to take a good look at the trees on their property today,” Barrier said. “They should check for broken, weakened or cracked limbs that might fall at the next gust of wind.”

PUD works to restore power
     Northern Wasco County PUD continued to work on electrical service outages this morning. While some customers reported only blips in service, others reported outages up to three hours long.
     PUD office staff was called in around 1:30 a.m. to answer telephones, because the answering service, located in Hood River, was without power and telephone service.
     Most outages were around The Dalles.
     Tygh Valley, Wamic and Dufur had few reports.
     “Restoring power to Northern Wasco County PUD customers is and will remain our top priority,” said Paul Titus, PUD engineer. “When all power has been restored, and only then, and if we have crews available, will we consider sending them to help utilities in other areas.”

Wasco Electric reports limited outages
     Wasco Electric Co-op reported limited outages except for Sherman County and South Wasco County.
     Both of those outages were caused by damage to a Bonneville Power Administration line.
     South Wasco County was out from 7:10 to 10:14 p.m, Thursday night, according to Casey McCleary, operations manager for the co-op.
McCleary said seven employees on three crews were out on call.
     Sherman County and parts of Gilliam and Wheeler County, including Fossil and Condon remained without power Friday morning.
     This morning, power also remained out in Mosier, Odell and Hood River.

BPA close to fixing lines
     “The wind was so severe, we had trouble getting close to the lines to fix them,” said Scott Simms, a spokesman for the Bonneville Power Administration. “Most of the outages came from broken insulators from lines slapping together. The lines were swinging pretty violently.”
     Simms said by 10 a.m. Friday the only remaining BPA outage east of The Dalles was in the Fossil area.
     Sherman County and parts of Gilliam and Wheeler counties had outages lasting from approximately 9 p.m. Thursday to 9 a.m. Friday.
     “The first objective is to get service restored quickly and safely,” Simms said. “If the crews see a line out of service, they try to isolate and reroute power to lines that can handle it. Then they can take it out of service and fix it. But sometimes there aren’t options to reroute if so many lines are out.”
     He said seven crew members based in The Dalles had been sent out for repairs, and additional operations staff were called in to help. The problems were compounded by a number of road closures, Simms said.

Sherman County affected little
     Sherman County’s electrical service was restored at about 8:40 this morning, according to Shawn Payne, emergency manager for the county.
     The outage was mostly just an annoyance, according to Payne. “It was kind of frustrating because the ambulance was in the bay, which is operated by electric doors,” she said. There is a manual override, but when we pulled on the cable it didn’t work. It was just about then that the electricity came back on.“
Payne said the cable had been misadjusted, and was being fixed Friday morning.
     “In Sherman County, we’re used to taking care of ourselves out here,” said Payne.

Highway 26 closed
     Most local Oregon State Police troopers were dispatched to Hood River this morning.
     Highway 26 between Madras and Sandy was closed last night. In the local district of Oregon Department of Transportation, about 30 trees were down, falling across the highway at various locations, said Sam Wilkins, ODOT district manager.
     Snow quickly followed this morning at higher elevations along Highway 26 and on the high plateau near Shaniko.

Around Oregon

     PORTLAND (AP) — About 350,000 homes lost power around Oregon when a storm slammed the state with winds topping 90 mph, downing trees and closing sections of major highways.
     Colder temperatures were expected as the storm passed and winds calmed, bringing heavy snow to lower elevations. But the National Weather Service said a high wind warning would remain in effect until Friday morning.
     Portland General Electric reported that power had been lost to about 245,000 of its customers — about 30 percent of its service territory that covers much of Portland and Salem.
     It was one of the worst outages for PGE since Dec. 12, 1995, when a storm knocked out power to 46 percent of the Portland-based utility’s customers.
“That shows you the effect of the combination of wind and downed trees can have,” said Mark Fryburg, PGE spokesman.
     Pacific Power, which covers most of the rest of the state, reported 105,000 customers had lost electricity by Thursday night.
     The affected cities included Lincoln City, Corvallis, Roseburg, Coos Bay, Grants Pass, Hood River, Roseburg, Stayton, Lebanon, Dallas and Albany, said Bekki Witt, Pacific Power spokeswoman.
     “It could be into Saturday until we know the extent of the damage,” Witt said.
PGE was calling in crews from other Western utilities to help with the massive repair job, expected to last through the weekend. Pacific Power also was considering whether to bring in assistance from other utilities.
     Fryburg reminded customers to avoid any downed power lines and report them immediately to the utility or call 911 if they looked to pose any serious danger. “Electricity can travel through water on the ground,” he warned.
     Much of the damage was caused by falling trees and limbs knocked down by winds that gusted past 90 mph on the Oregon coast and up to 80 mph in the Willamette Valley.
     A gust of 97 mph was recorded at Rockaway Beach before 5 p.m. Thursday on the coast, while gusts reached 80 mph in Salem and 62 mph in Portland.
Garibaldi and Lincoln City recorded gusts topping 90 mph on the coast, and wind reached 48 mph in Corvallis and 46 mph in Hillsboro.
     The Coast Guard said various river bar entrances had been ordered closed to maritime traffic, including the Columbia, Chetco, Coquille, Nehalem, Rogue, Siuslaw and Umpqua rivers. Also closed were the bars to Tillamook Bay, Netarts Bay, Siletz Bay, Depoe Bay and Yaquina Bay.
     Road closures due to falling debris included sections of U.S. 26 west of Portland, U.S. 101 on the coast and U.S 20 near Sweet Home.
     The stretch of U.S. 26 between Sandy and Welches east of Portland was closed due to downed trees and debris, said Alice Lasher of the Sandy Fire District.
     The Oregon Department of Transportation closed three major highways crossing the Cascade Range from the Willamette Valley — U.S. 20, Oregon 22 and Oregon 58 — due to fallen trees or downed power lines.
     The highways were not expected to reopen until ODOT maintenance crews and utility companies can repair damage and clean up debris — and much of the work could not begin until after daylight, officials said.
     The state also closed Highway 6 between Banks and Tillamook due to falling trees and very hazardous conditions. There was no detour and travelers were advised to postpone any trips until Friday.
     In Eastern Oregon, ODOT closed a 20-mile stretch of Highway 18 after high winds toppled dozens of trees across the road Thursday afternoon. The section of highway between Grand Ronde and U.S. 101 at Otis Junction was expected to remain closed until at least Friday morning, officials said.
     “It’s just too unsafe out there to take chances with peoples lives,” said ODOT District 4 Manager Bob Doran.
     The National Weather Service said rainfall was expected to be as high as 8 inches on the coast and 5 inches in the Cascade Range, with snow at higher elevations. The Willamette Valley was likely to get 2 to 3 inches of rain, forecasters said.
     Flood warnings were issued for a number of rivers in northwest Oregon.