Leavenworth Christmastown events canceled amid severe weather

Several days of driving rain this week compounded by powerful winds on Wednesday toppled thousands of trees and knocked out power throughout Leavenworth just as the holiday season enters full swing. Given the scale of the damage, the City of Leavenworth and the local Chamber of Commerce announced on Thursday the cancellation of the town’s fabled holiday light display and Christmastown festival through this weekend.

“We cannot evaluate the Lights until power is back on, however we seem to be dealing with broken branches and strands (not trees), and we intend to have them back on this next weekend,” wrote Chamber of Commerce spokesperson Jessica Stoller via email. “We have equipment and staffing on the ready to make that happen.”

Over 3,300 Chelan County PUD customers in Leavenworth were without power as of Friday morning, with an estimated restoration time of 6 p.m.

“It looks like a hurricane came through,” said Leavenworth resident Canuche Terranella on Friday via cell phone from Cashmere, the first time in over 36 hours he was able to access a mobile phone or internet connection.

Terranella described a harrowing situation on Wednesday as a so-called Chinook wind kicked up blustery gusts coupled with unseasonably warm air. The winds broke a window around 3 p.m. at the Wenatchee River Institute, where Terranella is the executive director. As he was cleaning up broken glass on the institute’s porch, he watched a tree snap and fly through the air, knocking over two other trees in the process.

The domino effect repeated across the Chelan County town nestled in the eastern Cascades. On Wednesday evening, a tree crushed a van in front of a rental house owned by Terranella and another tree fell on the neighboring house. A tree also split a house in two belonging to one of the institute’s staff members. Over a dozen trees came down on the institute’s campus, crushing an outdoor classroom and damaging a corner of the institute’s Red Barn event center.

Terranella estimated there could be thousands of downed trees, many 40-80- year-old ponderosa pines several times the height of a house, with scores of damaged homes and vehicles. “There are trucks everywhere, it sounds a little bit like a battlefield with all the woodchippers and chainsaws going but those are sounds we are grateful for,” he said.

While Terranella reported multiple tree and power crews on site throughout town, he cautioned that recovery could be slow given that removing the trees on his rental house and his neighbor’s home took a crew all day Thursday. Based on brief conversations with work crews, he said, “They are focused on getting trees out of houses and off power lines first.”

The heavy machinery has made quick work of road blockages, with City Administrator Matthew Selby saying via phone Friday that all but one city street is now open, barring localized closures where electrical crews are working on restoring power.

According to a Northwest Avalanche Center weather station, Tumwater Mountain, at elevation 4,180 feet, clocked sustained wind speeds above 50 mph and a wind gust as high as 82 mph on Wednesday at 11 p.m. In Leavenworth, at elevation 1,190 feet, temperatures soared above 70 degrees for several hours Wednesday evening.

With the power outage turning off the city’s famed 500,000-plus lights, Terranella said, “It was surreal to have Christmastown blacked out.” He described the December warmth as “bizarre” in a town decorated for Christmas guests, though extensive cleanup will be necessary before Leavenworth is ready for the millions of visitors who come annually to the Bavarian-themed city, whose holiday lights display runs through February.

Terranella reported that the strong winds wreaked havoc on the city’s pedestrianized main drag, knocking over garbage cans, portable toilets and tents used by vendors. As just one example, he described how the fryers, tables and inventory belonging to PapaZ’s mini donuts were strewn across Front Street.

The storm has left tourism businesses scrambling during their peak season. “I’m trying to process refunds and rebooking for the thousands of guests that were scheduled to visit us this week,” wrote Leavenworth Reindeer Farm owner Erika Bowie via text message.

In addition to the damaging winds, the Wenatchee River hit major flood stage, cresting at 17.1 feet in Peshastin on Thursday evening, just shy of a record. The flood waters inundated a well and the intake pipe from Icicle Creek, Selby said, but the city has sufficient treated drinking water for its residential population. He said that the wastewater treatment plant is at capacity due to stormwater.

While city crews have cleared considerable amounts of debris, coordinating the recovery effort has been challenging. “It’s difficult even for city staff to communicate,” Selby said. “We have one bar of cell service and no internet.”

Selby said there were no reports of flooded houses within city limits. He said Chelan County had closed East Leavenworth Road where it crosses Icicle Creek and will assess the bridge when waters recede.

Terranella and Selby described the city’s riverfront parks as fully submerged. Playground equipment at Waterfront Park is underwater while the bridge to Blackbird Island is barely visible, with the landmass itself below the water line.

Even still, Terranella said, the sheer amount of water draining out of the mountains and swelling small creeks has created its own problems. “There’s liquefaction happening,” he said, describing his own backyard as an example. His truck sank to its axles on a piece of ground that is typically firm and is now stuck in the saturated soil — one less vehicle available for Leavenworth’s ongoing recovery, with another atmospheric river bearing down on Monday.

“I’ve only been here three years but I’ve spoken to people who’ve never seen the river this high and never seen a wind storm as bad as Wednesday night’s,” Selby said