SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/335991_wind19.html

Wind knocks out power for thousands
Kite boarder dies after gust hits Lake Washington

Last updated October 18, 2007 10:55 p.m. PT

By KATHY MULADY, CASEY MCNERTHNEY AND LEVI PULKKINEN
P-I REPORTERS

The first big storm of the season blew into Seattle on Thursday with a punch that knocked out power to more than 280,000 residences and businesses throughout the Puget Sound region beginning midafternoon.

It also led to the death of a Lake Washington kite boarder, sent a Kent woman to the hospital after she was hit by a tree, broke a half-million dollar sculpture at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and forced cancellation of ferry runs.

All in a couple of hours.

At the height of the outages, as many as 50,000 Seattle City Light customers were without power. At 9:30 p.m., 11,500 were still in the dark.

"We have hundreds of lines down now," City Light spokesman Scott Thomsen said Thursday evening. "A lot of what we are encountering is trees that have fallen over, or branches that have broken off, falling down into the lines and causing damage to the system."

Power was out in many areas of City Light's service area. Crews were expected to be working through the night.

As the wind whipped, sometimes over 50 mph, emergency crews responded to a flood of calls. The highest reported gust was 62 mph in Spanaway, and the wind forced the closure of the Hood Canal Bridge for nearly three hours, starting at 4:30 p.m.

One of the most serious emergency calls came at 5:30 p.m. from a Lake Washington kite boarder who watched as another boarder was dragged north by the gusting wind.

A Seattle police patrol boat found the 44-year-old boarder floating face down about half a mile from the Kirkland marina, Officer Jeff Kappel said. When rescuers pulled the Seattle man from the water he was unresponsive and not breathing.

Police aboard the Harbor Patrol boat performed CPR on the man, as did medics who rushed him to Harborview Medical Center. Fire Department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick said the man did not regain consciousness on the trip to the hospital.

Stowing his gear at Magnuson Park just before sundown, kite boarder Larry Breuer said the thoughts and prayers of the rest of the boarders were with the victim and his family.

Breuer, who's been in the sport nearly a year, was one of a number of boarders out on Lake Washington as the wind picked up Thursday afternoon. He said sustained wind speeds were not particularly severe, but that some gusts might have topped 40 mph.

"When you're out there, you're one with the environment," Breuer said.

The environment also took a toll in Kent, where Fire Department Capt. Kyle Ohashi said a woman standing near her car in the Kent Station shopping center parking lot just after 2 p.m. was hit by the top of a cottonwood tree that snapped off in the high wind. She was unable to talk and was taken to the hospital, he said.

Strong gusts also tore off the top half a 55-foot tall sculpture at the Fred Hutchinson center's main campus near South Lake Union, just after 2:30 p.m. The glass and steel sculpture called "Vessel" reportedly cost about $500,000 and was paid for by a private donor. It was still under construction.

The artist, Ed Carpenter, lives in Portland and has been contacted, said Christi Losa, a spokeswoman for the research center. No one was injured.

With only a few exceptions, the state's ferry runs were unaffected.

A captain on the 3 p.m. route from Seattle to Bainbridge Island came on the boat's public address system, asking people not to go on the deck, where wind gusts reached 60 mph. Puget Sound waters had white caps, and the wind blew water across the deck in a constant spray. Foot-ferry service was temporarily halted on the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth run, mostly because of power outages at the dock.

Seattle Public Schools said any buildings without power Friday morning will be closed for the day.

Closures will be announced on TV, radio and the district's Web site, seattleschools.org.

The city of Seattle activated its emergency operations center in response to the first windstorm of the season to take reports of power outages.

The two biggest areas without power Thursday were near South Spokane Street in South Seattle and in North Seattle around Northeast 125th Street. About 4,500 customers were without power in those areas.

There were other reports of outages in West Seattle near Fauntleroy Way Southwest, most of Burien and near Northgate. About a dozen young trees toppled along Western Avenue downtown.

In the Maple Valley area, a live power line fell on a Cedar River Middle School bus loaded with about 40 children on state Route 169, a Tahoma School District spokesman said. The children were not injured. They were able to walk off the bus and many called their parents on cell phones to be picked up.

By 3:30 p.m., Puget Sound Energy had reports of scattered outages in Thurston, Pierce and east King counties, with a total of about 150,000 customers without power at one time or another during the storm.

By 9 p.m., 68,000 of those customers had power restored. Snohomish PUD reported 85,000 customers without power at the peak.

The National Weather Service said the wind should die down today, with the weather returning to typical fall showers.

"It is more or less what we expected all along," meteorologist Chris Burke said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. P-I reporter Kathy Mulady can be reached at 206-448-8029

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