A windstorm that hit the North Olympic Peninsula hard Monday morning caused a mess of downed power lines, trees fallen on roads, power outages and school buses trapped by falling objects in Port Townsend and Port Angeles.
Wind gusts peaking at 51 mph were recorded by the National Weather Service in Port Town-send.
Apart from a few trees and power lines sent toppling, no major damage was reported.
“We seemed to have skated through this one pretty nicely,” said Ross Tyler, Clallam County engineer.
Peak gusts were measured at 41 mph in Neah Bay, 40 mph in Port Angeles, 39 mph in Sequim and 37 mph in Quilcene as the cold Pacific storm blew in.
The storm was mostly wind and a very cold rain, said Gary Schneider, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Unstable weather with heavy rains Wednesday were in the National Weather Service forecast for the rest of this week.
The snow level is expected to drop to as low as 500 feet tonight.
In East Jefferson County, a motorist reported near-whiteout conditions Monday morning while traveling on state Highway 104 from Hood Canal Bridge to U.S. Highway 101.
A school bus carrying elementary and middle school students in Port Townsend was trapped behind a power line fallen across a road for 15 minutes Monday morning, said Diana Post, director of transportation for the Chimacum-Port Townsend Cooperative.
“We’re not allowed to back up without a flagger, and we couldn’t go forward,” Post said.
No students were injured, and firefighters from East Jefferson Fire-Rescue moved the lines to let the bus pass, she said.
A Port Angeles School District school bus was blocked by a fallen tree and freed by passing citizens, who used their four-wheel drive vehicles to pull the top of the tree off the road, said Karen Ross, district transportation supervisor.
About 1,000 customers in Carlsborg lost power for about 90 minutes Monday morning because of downed power lines, said Michael Howe, spokesman for Clallam County Public Utility District.
There were also smaller, sporadic outages countywide, Howe said.
On county roads, there were so many small branches down on roads that crews put plow blades on their trucks to clear out the mess, Tyler said.
But many private citizens cleared off roads of trees and branches before crews could arrive, he said.
“With the high prices of firewood, sometimes they get on the trees before we can get out there,” Tyler said.
Tyler cautioned people who remove trees from roads to be cautious of power lines that may be caught in the trees.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
