PORT ANGELES — Electrical power was restored Saturday afternoon after a tree fell onto a transmission line outside Port Angeles during heavy winds that morning and knocked out power to the entire West End — more than 5,000 customers.
The outage occurred at about 5 a.m.
It was “essentially” over as of 2:30 p.m., said Mike Howe, Clallam County Public Utility District spokesman, who explained that all substations were online by then.
The outage affected 5,200 PUD customers, all west of Port Angeles, he said.
The tree fell on the 115,000-volt line, owned and operated by the Bonneville Power Administration, near Benson Road on the western edge of Port Angeles.
In a separate incident, both lanes of U.S. Highway 101 six miles south of Forks were blocked Saturday after a tree knocked a power line over the highway at about 1 p.m.
As of 3:45 p.m., both lanes remained blocked, and there was no word on when it would be cleared.
Howe said about 300 customers lost power. He expected electricity to be restored by about 8 p.m.
In another outage, winds blew a 7,200-volt power line behind the Richard B. Anderson Federal Building — on Oak Street south of First Street in Port Angeles — into another at about 6:30 a.m., causing a bright explosive light visible as far away as Peabody Heights.
About 175 utility customers lost power, said Randy Brackett, city public works operations deputy director.
Power was fully restored at about 3 p.m., he said, though most customers were reconnected as of noon.
Puget Sound Energy reported no outages in East Jefferson County.
A wind advisory expired Saturday afternoon.
But the wind may give way to snow today for North Olympic Peninsula residents above 200 feet.
Johnny Berg, National Weather Service meteorologist, said snow flurries are possible, but accumulations will not exceed an inch, if they occur at all, around the snow level.
“It’s not going to stick around very much,” he said.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
