PORT ANGELES — A tree that fell into a power line Monday morning cut power to the Nippon Paper Industries USA’s paper mill and several other businesses along Marine Drive.
The tree, which fell at 8:15 a.m. near Marine Drive and Hill Street, closed Marine Drive to non-commercial traffic between Tumwater and Hill streets.
Traffic was detoured up Tumwater Street and west along Fifth Street to Hill Street. The detour remained in effect into the evening, city spokeswoman Teresa Pierce said.
Trucks were being detoured through the Port of Port Angeles log yard.
Access to the east entrance of the Boat Haven was available to local traffic.
Power had been restored to Nippon by 2:10 p.m., Pierce said.
Mill Manager Harold Norlund said there are two power lines that provide electricity to the mill. He said it took some time to make the switch-over, and even longer to clean up the mess that the outage caused.
“We were black in the mill, which is normal when we get a trip like that,” Norlund said.
The mill was beginning to resume paper production at 5:30 p.m.
Norlund said the mill probably lost “a couple hundred tons of production,” though he couldn’t provide a cost estimate.
Norlund said it took most of the day shift for workers to clean pulp from jammed equipment and to assess the damage.
“They have to re-steam the boiler, and they have to start cleaning the equipment up,” he said.
“It happens once or twice a year. It certainly causes a lot of damage. That an example of why the PUDs cut trees around power lines. They will do that [fall into power lines] sooner or later.”
As production resumed at Nippon, electricity remained out at west Boat Haven and Westport Shipyard dock, the Port of Port Angeles maintenance building and log scale yard, Destiny Restaurant and the Port Angeles Yacht Club, Pierce said.
City crews expected to have power restored by 9 p.m.
Pierce said the tree caught fire when it landed in the power line that serves the paper mill. The tree had been standing in saturated soil, she said.
“It was a big oak tree,” Pierce said.
The Port Angeles Fire Department extinguished the small fire.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
