Islanders woke to a thick blanket of snow on Monday morning, many without power and contending with downed trees.
King County Road crews were busy during the day and through the night, clearing the trees and snow out of the roads. Supervisor Jim Didricksen said between 6 and 8 inches accumulated on the island, between 60 to 80 trees fell and that there were many power outages because of downed wires.
Early Monday afternoon, he said that Vashon Highway was in good shape, but that the crews — four people in all — were just beginning to plow some of the other streets because the workers had been so busy with trees. While up to 80 trees falling during a heavy snow might seem high, he noted it is not an unusual to lose that many in a storm.
The winter weather kept Vashon Island Fire & Rescue (VIFR) busy as well, and they fielded some 20 calls between midnight and mid-afternoon Monday, Assistant Chief Bob Larsen said. One of those was a possible residential fire. An electrical problem was creating smoke, he said, and VIFR personnel searched for fire, but did not find any.
Other calls included many that the department can do little about, he added, such as downed trees and wires. When power lines are energized, they can cause fires that will go out when the power is off, he noted. The fire department monitors those, but Puget Sound Energy is responsible for power-related issues.
Regardless, it was a busy day.
“We made ends meet,” he said. “We used everybody available.”
As night fell, nearly 4,000 households were without power on the island, almost 60 percent of Puget Sound Energy (PSE) customers, according to Rick Wallace, who manages the Emergency Operations Center for the fire district. There were more than 80 separate outage reports, he said, and that high number of small reports meant that it would take some time to restore power, as each outage required its own materials and crew.
By early Tuesday morning, some 1,500 PSE customers were still without power, about one-fourth of the island homes and businesses at more than 70 locations. In what is surely bad news for some, full restoration of power is not expected on the island until midnight Wednesday night, an estimate that is 24 hours earlier than initial predictions. However, substatial progress is planned for Tuesday, with the goal of restoring power to half of those without it tonight.
Wallace noted that Vashon was one of the hardest hit areas, and that as of Tuesday afternoon, six crews were on the island and working to restore power.
In addition to power outages, islanders also contended with ice Tuesday morning, which made some roads and parking lots difficult to navigate.
While the snow might not have been enjoyable for adults dealing with downed trees and no electricity, it was a good time for many island children, who took to the island’s hills for a day of sledding on Monday. The snow, heavy and wet, was hard on the trees, but excellent for making snowmen and snowballs. All traces of the snow day are expected to be washed away soon, as rain is expected for Wednesday, and heavy rain predicted for Wednesday night into Thursday.
