FORKS — Electrical power was restored to nearly 5,300 customers at 9:50 p.m. tonight after a tree fell into a 115-kilovolt line near Sappho, cutting power to the West End this afternoon.
Power was off for nearly seven hours in the west ends of Clallam and Jefferson counties — including in Forks, LaPush, Clallam Bay and Neah Bay — after a tree fell on a major Bonneville Power Administration line 20 miles east of Sappho at 3 p.m., according to Mike Howe, Clallam County Public Utility District spokesman.
Once BPA crews removed the tree, they found no major damage and were able to quickly restore power, said Doug Johnson, BPA spokesman.
Power was restored to all customers at the same time since the problem was confined to one particular point on the line, he said.
Anything making contact with a line can cut power by tripping the breaker, which often can be remedied remotely, but in this case, the tree had to be cleared from the line before the breaker could be closed and power restored.
BPA crews patrolled the line until they found the problem, then removed the tree and restored power, he said.
The tree must have been tall, according to Johnson.
Trees are cleared in wide rights-of-way for 115-kilovolt lines such as the Port Angeles-Sappho line, he said.
“The trees are pretty far away,” he said.
“It would have to be tall enough to fall into the line,” he added.
“This doesn’t happen very often.”
Street signals weren’t working and Forks Community Hospital was using its emergency generator during the outage.
In Neah Bay, the outage canceled tonight’s girls and boys basketball games against Clallam Bay.
