High winds topple trees, cut power to thousands

SEATTLE – Winds with gusts up to 75 miles an hour downed trees and cut off power to thousands of homes Sunday in the central Cascade foothills and southeast King County.

About 10,000 customers remained without power Sunday night and more outages were still being reported, said Tim Bader of Puget Sound Energy.

“We’ve been restoring outages throughout the day,” he said. Crews were expected to work through the night.

Most of the utility’s outages were in Black Diamond, Auburn, Maple Valley, Issaquah and North Bend, Bader said. He had no estimate of when power might be restored.

In Buckley, Pierce County, winds gusting as high as 75 miles an hour brought down trees. Winds gusted to 74 miles an hour over the Alpental ski area in the Cascades, the National Weather Service said.

Gusts were reported up to 55 miles an hour in North Bend and 41 in Gold Bar, both in the Cascade foothills.

Power outages were also reported around Bonney Lake in Pierce County.

A high wind warning remained in effect Sunday night for the Cascade foothills and the east side of the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area.