PORT TOWNSEND — An overnight wind storm extending into Tuesday morning caused delays to the ferry and blacked out electrical power for more than 2,300 public utility district customers throughout East Jefferson County.
In the middle of the night, some 1,300 customers in Port Townsend were without power, said Will O’Donnell, spokesman for Jefferson County Public Utility District.
More than 1,000 customers lost power in the greater Port Ludlow area, including Swansonville Road, O’Donnell said. On Marrowstone Island, crews responded to downed lines that affected 150 homes, he said.
As of 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, all electrical power had been restored.
The Washington State Ferry’s first two sailings on the Port Townsend-Coupeville route Tuesday morning were canceled because of high winds and rough seas.
“The winds were gusting to over 40 mph,” said Justin Fujioka, state ferries system spokesman. “The swells were 4 to 6 feet and we had gale-force winds. We cancel routes when it is this rough.”
Fujioka said that the ferry captain has the final authority to cancel the run. On this route, the problem is the Coupeville side.
“The Coupeville harbor gets the wind worse than Port Townsend, and the boats have a hard time getting out of there,” said Fujioka.
Ferry service was restored with the 9:30 a.m. sailing from Port Townsend.
At first light, an 80-foot sailboat was found drifting in Discovery Bay near the WorldMark Resort and the Coast Guard was called to investigate. No one was injured.
“A large sailboat broke off the dock and drifted north and became grounded,” said Jeff Gearhart, spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard Base Seattle.
“People need to be aware of the weather and secure their boats. This boat took the cleat right off the dock.”
O’Donnell said separate incidents caused the power outages overnight throughout the county.
In Port Ludlow, “there is an underground fault there with a section of cable that failed,” he said.
“There have been three faults in the last month. It is ending its life and we’re exploring how to repair it.
“It’s much more expensive to do than overhead lines because we have to dig them up to repair them. We will be asking the commissioners for help with this issue.”
He said that crews were able to reroute power around the fault.
O’Donnell said that PUD General Manager Larry Dunbar is committed to keeping the power on for customers.
“Larry has made reliability a priority and we will address that issue with the commissioners,” O’Donnell said. “We’ve had a couple wide-spread outages and we want to address that. We want to make sure our customers have power when they need it.”
The National Weather Service in Seattle confirmed the wind gusts were more than 40 miles per hour at the peak of the storm. It cautioned that a series of storms will come through this week and to expect high winds and rain.
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Jefferson County Editor/Reporter Jeannie McMacken can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jmcmacken@peninsuladailynews.com.
