Storm causes power outages throughout county
Saturday, January 5, 2008 6:06 AM PST
By Tony Lystra
Printable version
E-mail this articleAnother serious storm front hit the Lower Columbia area late Friday, only weeks after the region was slammed by flooding and landslides.
The gale wasn’t expected to pack the destructive power of the Dec. 2 storm, but, as of Friday evening, it had brought down trees and knocked out power to thousands of homes across Cowlitz County.
Cowlitz PUD said Friday afternoon it had recorded a peak wind gust of 38 mph at its operations center.
Throughout the day, PUD crews worked to restore power to 3,800 customers on the West Side Highway area north of Castle Rock, Eufaula Heights, Carroll Road, Mount Pleasant Road, Holcomb Acres Road and Haussler Road south of Kelso and parts of Kalama and Woodland.
As of 9:30 p.m., about 300 homes were still without power, the PUD said.
The storm downed a tree across Ocean Beach Highway near Stella just before 5 p.m., blocking the thoroughfare and forcing commuters to snake their way along back roads, the Washington State Patrol said.
National Weather Service
forecaster Julia Ruthford said
Friday afternoon that coastal areas could expect winds between 60 and 70 mph and gusts up to
80 mph in exposed beachheads. For the Interstate 5 corridor, she said, “we’ll be looking for gusts as high as 45 to 55 mph, with sustained gusts in the
30 mph range.”
The storm is powerful enough to cause “minor damage” in Cowlitz County, Ruthford said. “We’re not expecting widespread damage.”
“The Dec. 2 storm was really (an) exception,” Ruthford said. “This one is really powerful, but it’s not that order of magnitude. I wouldn’t want to downplay this storm, but it’s not as big as that one was.”
Forecasters said there could be thunderstorms today and rain showers throughout the weekend.
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