Thousands without power, including in Thurston County, after windstorm blasts region

Rolf Boone
·2 min read
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Update: Power was restored at Chinook Middle School about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday; however, all after-school clubs and practices are canceled. The away basketball game at Salish Middle School is still happening, the school announced to parents.

A windstorm blasted the region Monday night and into Tuesday, producing power outages throughout Western Washington, including in Thurston County, according to Puget Sound Energy.

About 15,000 PSE customers were without power at 9 a.m. Tuesday, but that number had climbed up to around 28,000 by noon Tuesday, according to the utility’s outage map. The map showed scattered outages in Olympia, west Olympia and in Thurston County.

However, most of the outages were in the Tacoma and Seattle areas, according to the map.

An overnight windstorm produced scattered outages in the Olympia area on Tuesday.
An overnight windstorm produced scattered outages in the Olympia area on Tuesday.

More than 100,000 PSE customers in the region were without power at the start of the storm Monday night, but that number had been whittled to 27,000 as of 6 a.m. Tuesday before the total rose again, according to PSE.

“Customers in south King County, Pierce County and Thurston County were most severely affected by the winds overnight,” PSE officials said in an update about the storm.

Two Thurston County school districts announced power-related school closures: Black Lake Elementary in Tumwater and Griffin School District both were closed Tuesday.

Chinook Middle School in Lacey also announced to parents about 12:40 p.m. that the school had lost power.

“We have experienced a power outage on our school campus,” Principal Sarah Shaw said in an email. “We are keeping students in class until the end of the regular school day and will continue our day as normally as possible.”

North Thurston High School, Envision Career Academy and Ignite Family Academy are also without power, district spokeswoman Amy Blondin said.

“We are communicating with families and continuing our school days as normally as possible,” she said.

Crews worked overnight to assess damage, make repairs to equipment and restore power to customers, the PSE officials said, adding that its Emergency Coordination Center and local storm bases are open for outage restoration efforts.

“Crews will be working around the clock as conditions allow until power is restored to all impacted customers,” the officials said.

The National Weather Service issued a wind advisory for the Thurston County area Monday night that was in effect until 10 p.m. Tuesday.

The windstorm could produce sustained southwest winds of 35 to 40 miles per hour with gusts up to 60 mph, according to NWS.

However, a check of wind speeds recorded at Olympia Regional Airport show that winds have so far not been as strong. Sustained wind speeds of between 15 and 20 mph have been recorded at the airport, with gusts in the 20-30 mph range.

A gust of 35 miles per hour was recorded at the airport at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.

This is likely just the beginning of weather disruptions this week.

The weather forecast calls for a rain/snow mix, with the likelihood of snow increasing as temperatures fall from Thursday through Saturday. Overnight temperatures are expected to reach as low as the teens by the weekend, with high temperatures staying below freezing.