Towns report on damage from wind blast

Avista crews work on Brayton Road near Albion last Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 18. The storm took out several poles which needed to be replaced. For photos of storm damage, see page B3.

This fir tree came down on First Street by Zip’s Restaurant in the storm last Tuesday.

The historic windstorm last Tuesday, Nov. 17, affected every part of the county and reportedly knocked out power to more than 12,000 Avista Whitman County customers as well as 554 Inland Power county customers.

At the height of the storm, Avista saw nearly 200,000 regional customers without power, and Inland had more than 32,000 in the dark. It was the worst outage in either company’s history.

As of Tuesday morning, Avista reported all customers in Whitman County had power restored. Five Inland customers remained without power.

“We are hoping to have everybody up by tomorrow night,” Inland’s Chief Communications Officer Jennifer Lutz said Tuesday.

The five Inland customers without power were located in Malden (one), Lamont (two), near Ewan (one) and on Green Hollow Road (one).

Colfax businesses along Highway 26 had power service restored at about 6 p.m. last Thursday night after crews worked to replace two poles and their associated lines on Perkins Ave., which downed service on Perkins Ave., in Brown’s Addition and along Highway 26. NAPA, Jones Truck and Implement and Les Schwab were all without power Wednesday and Thursday until service was restored.

Les Schwab last Thursday worked with about half a crew at the shop. Manager Cliff Miller said they were able to complete some jobs by using the air compressor system on their field service truck. They had a full staff on duty Friday and expected to be doing catchup work. Residents on Perkins Ave. reported power was restored there at about 5 p.m. Nov. 19

Arrangements had been made to use First Baptist Church as a warming center Thursday night as temperatures dropped. Members of the church brought air mattresses for people to use. The church was notified at about 4:45 p.m. that power had been restored, and the center was never put into action.

Avista Crews arrived at the Perkins Avenue neighborhood Thursday morning, offered hot coffee to residents and began repairing the extensive damage to the system.

Last Colfax business to have power restored was Zip’s, which resumed business on Saturday after being closed the previous three days. Zip’s was cut off when a big fir tree went down in the storm at the residence just south of the drive-in and cut the service line.

Colton reported no damage. Power also remained on there, with some residents’ lights not even flickering during the storm.

In Endicott, the lights went out around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Some residents reported that a transformer blew, and Laura Jones at the town hall said that a couple of trees fell at the Clint and Nadine Rice property by the sewer plant and took out a power pole. The outage affected all of Endicott and was responsible for the school being closed Wednesday. The power was restored there around 2 p.m. Wednesday, Jones said. She also said that several trees went down on properties.

One tree went down on private property near the city pool and hit a parked car in Garfield. Power was out for most of the town Tuesday evening, but the power outage was short, lasting only a few minutes. Some houses, however, lost power for several days, with some residents reportedly not having power restored until Friday.

LaCrosse reported downed trees and a roof that blew onto a mobile home. Ninety-nine percent of LaCrosse lost power in the storm around 5:30 p.m. Nov. 17. Their power was restored around 3:30 p.m. Nov. 18 – 22 hours after it had first gone out. School was called off there Wednesday due to the outage.

In Oakesdale, power was never lost. Two trees blew down on private property, causing no damage.

Much of Palouse had a short power outage, while houses on the south side of downtown and Alder Street had no power until Wednesday. A few trees reportedly fell, and several shingles were torn from roofs. There was no further damage reported.

At Rosalia, power service was restored Thursday morning. Part of Rosalia was knocked out by the Tuesday wind storm, generally from 5th Street north. The outage knocked out the Rosalia pumps which elevate water to the town’s reservoir and standpipe tower. Residents had been encouraged to conserve water because the town lacked a way to pump to the reservoirs.

Mayor Nan Konishi said city officials were relieved when the pumps went on-line Thursday without a repeat of a computer problem which shut down the system after a previous power outage. Loss of a computer component at that time left the city without a way to pump water until a new part was ordered and installed. One of the big storm damage sites in Rosalia was on 1st Street, where fallen trees took out power lines.

St. John had a town-wide power outage. Operations Manager Roger Bly said their town was fortunate.

“We have had some windstorms here in the past, so people have really gotten in the habit of pruning up their trees,” he said. “We did lose some trees, but nothing really, really major.”

Bly said no power poles were damaged in the storm, and he also added a thanks to the community of St. John.

“A big thank you to the townspeople,” he said. “They did a lot of help picking up the limbs in the streets and getting out and helping.”

Lights flickered on and off in Uniontown, but power did not go out completely. Several branches blew off trees, and garbage cans also rolled through the streets. There were no reports of extensive damage.