Trees become threats
The windstorm that blew through the Inland Northwest left stories in its wake as well as debris. Here are some of them:
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Neighbors around 2221 S. Madison in Spokane awoke to a thud about 4 a.m., when a pine towering more than 70 feet snapped. It toppled into the two-story brick house, crushing the top of a dormer and knocking down half the brick chimney.
“The top of the tree hit the side of our house and made a loud noise,” said Dave Hughes, the neighbor on the north side. “Dogs were barking, kids were crying, the whole bit.”
Hughes, who has lived in the neighborhood for 16 years, said it was the first tall pine he could recall falling.
The occupant of the house, who didn’t want to be interviewed, was unhurt. At 3:30 p.m., she was waiting for an insurance adjuster to arrive.
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Newman Lake resident Doug Maghan heard the sound of snapping tree trunks about midnight and jumped out of bed to check on neighbors throughout the night. By 2 p.m. Friday, he hadn’t been to sleep, busying himself clearing the road of massive grand firs that toppled like dominos.
One tree fell square through the middle of a cabin labeled “Valhalla,” shattering the windows and leaving beams hanging from the ceiling.
Amid a tangle of downed power lines and storm debris, a black Labrador retriever dropped a fresh-fallen stick at Maghan’s feet.
“It’s like a tornado came right through here,” Maghan said, gesturing at the swath of destruction that seemed to creep up from the lake shore. Roads surrounding the lake were littered with tree boughs and pine cones.
As a generator hummed in the distance, Maghan acknowledged a bright side to the situation.
“I was running out of beach firewood,” he said. “I’m golden now. I’m going to have some huge fires this summer.”
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The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office reported the main emergency service agencies received 145 wind-related “computer aided dispatch” calls in the 12 hours since midnight Thursday. Mostly, the calls involved trees or limbs down on power lines or roadways, along with some reports of arcing wires and transformers. There were eight traffic accidents but none involved injuries.
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The state’s economy could take at least a short-term hit from the storm because of lost business and damage, said Evelina Tainer, chief economist for Washington’s Employment Security Department. Over the longer term, she said, the effects aren’t likely to be significant.
“One or two days of lost business will only hurt someone really at the margin and ready to go under,” she said.
The main question will be how long it takes to get power restored, Tainer said. Some homes and cars damaged by wind and fallen trees were insured, some undoubtedly weren’t.
“Think about people’s refrigerators: If people are stocked up for the holidays, those could be some major expenditures,” she said. But on the other hand, she said, cleanup and repair work will likely boost employment.
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A ponderosa pine destroyed Susan Ginter’s blue trailer house at Hauser Lake, slicing it in half, right through the kitchen. Luckily, Ginter was asleep in a back bedroom, said her daughter Cindy Marcella.
“It’s probably a total loss,” Marcella said, tearing up at the destruction of her family home, as her husband, Nick, took a chainsaw to pieces of the tree resting in the kitchen.
“Thank God for family and friends,” Marcella said.
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The power lines atop the pole on Grand Boulevard near 28th Avenue began arcing about 5:40 a.m., doing what one witness described as a remarkable impression of the exploding outfield lights in the Robert Redford movie “The Natural.” For about a half a minute, it had both the look and sound of fireworks.
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Widespread power outages complicated the morning commute throughout Puget Sound. Highway reader boards were knocked out, as were many of the cameras and traffic sensors that commuters rely on to determine which stretches of road are the most congested.
Fallen trees closed part of Interstate 90 near Seattle and parts of Interstate 405. Trees and fallen power lines blocked other major thoroughfares throughout King County and in parts of Pierce, Thurston, Clark, Cowlitz, Grays Harbor, Jefferson, Kitsap, Mason, Lewis, Pacific and Wahkiakum counties.
“Basically, we’re trying to clear a lot of debris off the road,” said Travis Phelps, a Department of Transportation spokesman. “Although this storm was very severe, rain and wind aren’t foreign things to us here in the Northwest. We expected a lot of stuff.”