Jefferson County Public Utility District (PUD) manager Jim Parker was relieved March 10 when Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) officials couldn't make it to Port Hadlock to discuss how much the last three storms have cost the PUD.

Parker was busy with a storm March 10 into March 11, and another windstorm hit the region March 13.

“They couldn't get across the Hood Canal Bridge,” Parker said of the FEMA officials. And since the PUD was in the midst of trying to get the power back on for 14,000 customers – there were outages from Coyle to Port Townsend and in between – Parker wasn't sure he could even get access to the data they were looking for that day.

It has been an unusual season of severe windstorms in the last eight months.

All told, Parker estimates storm events on Aug. 29, 2015, Nov. 17-20, 2015 and Dec. 1-14, 2015 have cost the PUD roughly $700,000 in extra costs, mostly associated with hiring outside crews to get service back up.

The latest round of storms probably cost another $300,000. Three extra crews were called out to help the Jefferson County PUD. Every crew has four people and each person is paid roughly $100 an hour – it's double pay – to respond to outages, Parker said.

On March 14, the PUD was looking for another crew from Mason County to come relieve the two crews from Jefferson County PUD, a crew from Lewis County, a contract crew from Michels and a tree-trimming crew.

“Our crews are about shot and the other crews went away,” Parker said Monday.

Parker was not sure whether the latest round of storms would qualify for FEMA's financial help. That, he said, would depend on how many other public agencies suffered throughout the region.

MARCH 10 STORM

The forecasted wind storm that began March 9 and peaked March 10 brought wind gusts of 65 mph to parts of Jefferson County. Mudslides, downed wires and trees blocking roads and highways were being reported Wednesday night into Thursday.

The Chimacum School District canceled classes March 10 due to power and bus travel issues, Port Townsend's Blue Heron School was closed due to power failure, and Brinnon School opened two hours late. The Jefferson County Courthouse was also closed, and the state ferry out of Port Townsend missed sailings.

Bob Hamlin, Jefferson County Emergency Management director, said the last storm of that type was in December 2014.

The Hood Canal Bridge closed to vehicle traffic because of high winds twice during the storm.

One of the most widespread outages March 10 in Port Townsend was caused when a pine tree was uprooted by a wind gust at 5:50 a.m. near the corner of Fillmore and Clay streets. PUD contractors had trimmed the tree's branches away from power lines two days earlier, noted homeowner Kathy Krause, but that didn't stop it from taking down those same lines when it was toppled by high winds.

"It's just sad to see it go," said Krause, who guessed the tree had been there since the late 1800s.

MARCH 13 STORM

The windstorm on Sunday, March 13 caused problems, but not as many as that of March 9-10. About 4,000 PUD customers lost power March 13. Some of the larger, if temporary, outages were caused when the PUD had to shut down its Irondale Substation circuit to the Chimacum and Port Ludlow substations to remove a tree in a transmission line.

The Hood Canal Bridge closed to vehicle traffic at 3:53 p.m., March 13 due to high winds, and reopened at 6:45 p.m. High winds also canceled the Port Townsend–Coupeville ferry route most of Sunday.

For a time on Sunday afternoon, U.S. Highway 101 was closed between Brinnon and Quilcene, the Hood Canal Bridge was closed, and the Port Townsend ferry was out of service.

"We can be easily isolated here and that just presses the point to take personal responsibility to take care of yourself," said Keppie Keplinger of the county's Department of Emergency Management. "We could be isolated for an extended period of time."

The county's Emergency Operations Center, located at the county jail in Port Hadlock, was activated for both storms, and had to resort to generator power during both storms.

No injuries due to the storm were reported.

PUD NOTES

The PUD's Parker noted he had surveyed other systems and Puget Sound Energy, which owned Jefferson County's system up until 2013, had 175,000 connections down on March 13. There were also power outages in King, Snohomish and Kitsap counties.

A silver lining of sorts is that Jefferson County PUD customer service representatives have gotten a lot of practice in responding to outages and now have the routine down well and know what they are doing, Parker said.

“Things are much more smoother as we are getting used to it. The line crew knows places by names. I think things are working a lot smoother,” Parker said of employees coming in and being ready to answer a lot of phone calls. He said people also are becoming more familiar with the phone system and checking online for outage information.

The PUD also continues to get help from Security Services Northwest Inc. with answering phone lines.

Parker did not have time to chat on Monday. There was an outage in downtown Port Townsend that required power to be shut down on three circuits so that one circuit could be brought back online.

(Storm coverage, with up to the minute updates, was featured on ptleader.com and our Facebook page.)