Electrical power was knocked out on Thursday to more than 7,000 customers on the North Olympic Peninsula, with everything west of Lake Crescent without electricity.
The Clallam County Public Utility District reported 5,908 customers — 5,711 in Clallam County and 197 in West Jefferson County — lost power by 1:27 p.m. Thursday due to tree in a Bonneville Power Administration line, according to Nicole Hartman spokesperson for Clallam County PUD.
At the same time, Jefferson County Public Utility District reported a large outage affecting 1,000 customers from Chimacum down Center Road to the end of the Coyle Peninsula along Dabob Bay.
The feeder line from the Chimacum substation went out, cutting off power to everyone south, said Will O’Donnell, Jefferson County PUD spokesperson.
At 3:45 p.m., another 1,000 or so lost power in Port Hadlock and Irondale areas and the line from Chimacum, which had been repaired, went out again.
All in East Jefferson County were finally reinstated by about 4:30 p.m.
Those on the West End were expected to regain power by 6 p.m. Thursday night, Hartman said.
Clallam PUD also reported smaller outages in the county on Thursday, an 11:30 a.m. outage affecting 250 customers in the Joyce area and another affecting 44 customers in the Deer Park-O’Brien area at 12:13 p.m.
The Joyce outage was caused by a broken pole, according to Hartman.
A smattering of other small outages were reported later in the day, with no time of estimated restoration.
High wind was the primary problem. Winds pushed branches and trees into lines.
“We’ve had all kinds of high winds all over the county,” O’Donnell said.
“We’ve had trees down, lines down — all wind-related,” Hartman said.
