Clallam County emergency responders again braced for high winds on the West End as Quillayute Valley School District sent children home at about 1 p.m. Monday.
The National Weather Service issued another high wind warning for coastal areas including La Push and Neah Bay from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday, with gusts of up to 60 mph forecast along beaches and the Grays Harbor County shoreline.
Another high wind warning was in effect for Admiralty Inlet, San Juan County and western Whatcom and Skagit counties from 4 p.m. Monday through 1 a.m. today.
Clallam County Public Utility District workers continued restoring electricity to the remaining 504 customers without power west of Port Angeles three days after a wind storm left the county without electricity, PUD spokeswoman Nicole Clark said Monday evening.
City of Port Angeles power was restored as of Monday afternoon to all residential, commercial and industrial customers except Lakeside Industries at Eclipse Industrial Parkway, Public Works Director James Burke said.
Some private services damaged during the storm still must be connected to the city electrical system, he said.
Private contractors should contact the city to fully restore the service by calling 360-417-4726, Burke said.
But holiday shoppers still flocked to Sequim on Saturday, while hundreds skated at Port Angeles’ Winter Ice Village and continued to sell out a Lincoln Theater in the Rough play Saturday and Sunday, chamber of commerce directors for Sequim and Port Angeles said.
The Sequim Centennial Park Christmas tree survived after the wind bowled it over, leaving a forlorn 5-foot stump, new Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Anji Scalf said.
Sequim city parks and recreation, street and public works crews came to the rescue, righting it to a still-stately 20-25 feet.
“It’s Christmas, and we have to do this,” Scalf recalled the workers saying.
Edna Petersen, owner of Necessities and Temptations gift shop in downtown Port Angeles, sent her staff home at 11 a.m. Friday and reopened Saturday and Sunday to holiday shoppers.
“Some were a day behind and a little more frantic, but it worked,” Petersen said Monday.
Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Marc Abshire had yet to talk to retailers Monday morning about the weekend.
But he estimated almost 1,500 people were in the city over the weekend, between 900 skaters at the Ice Village on Saturday and Sunday, and sold-out audiences of nearly 200 people at each of three shows of the chamber-Nemesis Productions’ musical comedy and pantomime, “Snow White and the Five Housemates,” at the Lincoln Theater.
“Because we had these other events going on, I think that helped mitigate some of the loss from the storm on Friday, so that’s good,” he said.
Power was restored to most of Clallam County from Blyn to Port Angeles by Friday evening after an approximately 8-hour countywide outage that left few bright lights except from the Jamestown S’Klallam and Lower Elwha Klallam tribes’ food, fuel and gaming businesses, thanks to their massive emergency generators.
Joseph Bennett, marketing manager at Lower Elwha Food and Fuel, said Monday that the gas station and market was flooded with customers when a windstorm struck Friday. (Jesse Major/Peninsula Daily News)
The Jamestown’s Longhouse Market & Deli and 7 Cedars Casino illuminated the darkness at Blyn, as did the Lower Elwha’ Food and Fuel convenience store 4½ miles west of Port Angeles, creating long lines of vehicles waiting for gas and stratospheric business activity.
The store’s two 11,000-gallon tanks had to be filled twice rather than the usual once from about 2 p.m. Friday, when the countywide outage began, through Saturday afternoon, Joseph Bennett, Food and Fuel marketing manager, said Monday.
“We were posting over Facebook, letting people know we were still alive over here, like a little oasis,” Bennett said.
Drivers lined up on U.S. Highway 101 at the Longhouse in Blyn just as they did 27 miles west, at the Lower Elwha store.
Jamestown Tribal Chairman Ron Allen said the casino had one of its biggest weekends ever, with patrons waiting three and four hours for seats at 7 Cedars’ restaurants.
The casino was down to less than half a tank of fuel in its generator when the outage hit.
“The biggest lesson was, keep our generator fuel tank full,” he said, noting the casino had to draw diesel from the Longhouse gas station.
Along with Quillayute Valley School District shutting down early, Forks High School sports and school activities were canceled, and Cape Flattery School District cancelled an away basketball trip, school district officials said.
Electricity was shut down in a planned outage from 1 p.m.-3 p.m. Saturday in Forks to clear trees from power lines, Forks Outfitters Manager Bruce Paul said, adding that business was not too bad Saturday and Sunday.
Forks Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Lissy Andros said the Forks Visitor Information Center was closed Saturday and that business downtown “was pretty dismal” Friday and Saturday.
But she said was encouraged by the 20 people who stopped by Monday at the Visitor Center, including a few from Hawaii.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
West Lauridsen Boulevard in Port Angeles remained closed to traffic Monday following Friday’s windstorm. (Jesse Major/Peninsula Daily News)
