Local

Crew prioritize schools following weekend of North Sound power outages

Thousands in the North Sound remained in the dark a day and a half after a damaging windstorm blew trees down into power lines and homes.

Snohomish County PUD said fewer than 49,000 customers were still without power as of 8 p.m. Sunday.

Fifty-three power crews are spread across the region, with four more who arrived Sunday night from other communities to help.

Crews have been working, but many are still living without power. You can see the reason why on Marine Drive on the Tulalip reservation.

Wires are still down nearly two days after the storm came through, and the power outages are complicating cleanup efforts all over the area.

This has become the soundtrack to this Marysville neighborhood without power since a ferocious storm swept through Friday night.

It’s the same neighborhood where at least three homes were struck by falling trees, including the house where Daniel Woo lives.

“It was pretty loud and shocking,” Woo said. “We were downstairs when it happened.”

It was in the light of day that they could see just how much damage was done. The roof caved in, Woo said.

“There are sections of the wall and the roof laying in the office, and it took out both of the desk areas where the computers are at,” Woo said.

His was just one house on this one street in Marysville. A tree fell a couple of houses down with disastrous consequences. A neighbor was in her bedroom when a tree crashed through, leaving her in critical condition. The memory of the pain of that moment could still be felt here on this overcast Sunday.

“Just when I took a step back into my house, and I heard him say, a bad word,” Sani Talatainasopi said, “and then it came down just like that. It covered the whole, the whole garage.”

Snohomish County PUD said it has crews fanned out across its service area. At the height of the storm, some 190,000 customers were without power, more than half of its entire customer base.

Crews have come in from at least six other public utility districts across the state. Still, they have their work cut out for them.

“We have to clear the damage,” said Aaron Swaney, a spokesperson for Snohomish County PUD. “Then we have to fix the pole. We gotta fix the wires. It’s a lot of work. And we’re seeing upwards of 30 jobs like that across the county from Camano Island to Edmonds out east to Gold Bar and Monroe.

We are still trying to confirm the condition of the woman who was injured in the house where the tree fell. Her neighbors told us it didn’t look good.

Snohomish PUD is prioritizing getting transportation and schools back up in time for school and work Monday.