Mudslides and fallen trees had made an island of the West End on Monday, but by early Tuesday evening, roads were reopened and power restored to all but 500 to 700 of the 6,000 customers who lost electricity.
Both Clallam and Jefferson County commissioners declared an emergency on Tuesday, with Jefferson County figuring that Monday’s storm caused between $500,000 and $1 million worth of damage.
Clallam was still calculating.
“We haven’t even been able to get phone access to the people out there, so we really have no idea what damage estimates will be yet,” said Bob Martin, director of the Clallam County Emergency Management Department, on Tuesday.
Olympic National Park was virtually shut down by the storm, with roads into the Hoh and Quinault rain forests closed and the Sol Duc Road blocked by a mud slide 5 feet deep and 60 feet wide about a half-mile south of Salmon Cascades.
Crews cleared two rock slides from Hurricane Ridge Road south of Port Angeles on Tuesday morning, said park spokeswoman Barb Maynes.
On the Peninsula’s east side, U.S. Highway 101 was reopened early Tuesday at Canal View Lane south of Brinnon, after it was flooded with about 4 feet of water from the Hood Canal.
Late Tuesday, Highway 101 on the West End was reopened at Lake Crescent and Bear Creek near Sappho, where multiple mudslides and flooding had closed about 10 miles of highway.
Also reopened on Tuesday were state Highway 112 near the junction with state Highway 113, and state Highway 110 between Forks and LaPush, which was blocked by flooding and fallen trees.
Telephone land lines, cell phones and Internet were inoperable for much of Tuesday in the West End.
Most of the problems were because of a lack of electricity rather than a network failure, said Dana Dyksterhuis, media relations manager for Qwest.
Martin credited amateur radio operators with keeping lines of communication open.
