With just over a week before Christmas, it was an especially bad time for the area's business owners to lose power for a full day. But that's what happened in the White Salmon area, as most of the city's merchants and residents were without electricity for about 27 hours.
And White Salmon had it relatively easy: A significant number of Klickitat Public Utility District customers were without power from Thursday evening until Tuesday morning. Glenwood and Trout Lake were among the last areas to get their power restored.
In White Salmon, the worst day was Friday. All that day, the downtown business district was virtually shut down because there was no power for lights or to operate cash registers. Residents throughout the community were also without power, although fortunately temperatures were in the 40s on that day, and not too frigid.
The main culprit in the power outages were trees felled by the high winds that slammed the area. The broken trees took out power lines when they went over.
Behind Thriftway, in one example of the local force of the wind's fury, two towering ponderosa pines came down at about 9:30 p.m. Thursday. The trees fell across NE Pioneer Place, smashed a parked Toyota pickup truck, and struck the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, tearing off its gutters and damaging the roof.
Pastor Pat Milligan said he first heard about the damage Friday morning.
"I got a call from a church member, saying, `you need to get to the church. We've got a tree inside,'" Milligan recalled. There was substantial damage to the roof of the church, and a large section of the roof had to be covered by a huge blue tarp.
"An eight-inch limb came through the roof, and the roof was indented; the tree pushed it in a little," Milligan said. "There was some water in the sanctuary, but it was not too bad. We'll be OK for church, but we'll have to keep the holes covered with that tarp."
Milligan, who offered a preliminary estimate of the damage at about $20,000-$30,000, said it could have been much more serious.
"If not for the power lines, it might have been worse," Milligan explained. "The tree might have been slowed down when it hit the power lines."
The power outages were lengthy in some areas. A major transmission line between Trout Lake and Glenwood was knocked out on Thursday, and the power remained out in Glenwood as of Tuesday morning, as overwhelmed PUD crews worked to restore the flow of juice to residents in that area. Parts of Trout Lake were also out, with temperatures barely in double digits.
"It's about 10 degrees there," said a PUD employee.
The Klickitat Public Utility District had all its crews out in the field, removing trees from across power lines and replacing downed wires. To help out, crews were borrowed from elsewhere in the region.
"Three of our crews are out working, and two Northern Wasco PUD crews," said Jim Smith, engineering manager for the Klickitat PUD. "Northern Wasco has a tree crew here as well, and our tree crew is out working, so there are seven crews in all."
Smith said he was originally hopeful the power would be restored for Trout Lake and at least parts of Glenwood sometime on Monday, but the work stretched into Tuesday.
"There are trees on lines all over," Smith said.
At the beginning of the outages, White Salmon, Bingen, Husum, Trout Lake, Glenwood, and Snowden were among the communities without electricity.
"Lyle and Dallesport were the only ones that were on and didn't have a problem," said Wanita Gordon, the PUD's customer service representative in White Salmon.
She added that the Klickitat PUD serves about 10,000 customers, and approximately 5,000 of them were in the dark at the height of the outages.
Smith pointed out that the storm was the worst to impact the area in a long time.
"This is the worst hit we've had since 1996," he said.
Almost every White Salmon business was shut down on Friday, including the town's main grocery store, Thriftway, and all the local banks.
Butterflies Flowers & Gifts made a valiant effort to work through the outage on Friday, but called it a day after a couple hours working in the dim light from the front window and some candles.
"We worked in candlelight in the morning, and did some deliveries," said Margie Baumgarden, one of the owners of the business.
Baumgarden added that trying to create floral displays by candlelight was not easy.
"That's very difficult. It's dark in here," Baumgarden said. "If we hadn't worked late Thursday, it would have been a real problem."
Butterflies co-owner Michelle Billette said they had stayed later than usual on Thursday to prepare Friday's deliveries.
"Maybe we had a premonition, but we stayed late Thursday night," Billette said.
With the electricity off, Thriftway suffered the loss of a significant amount of food.
"We lost all our fresh meat and deli meats, all our milk, our orange juice," said Thriftway Manager Tony Slyter.
Slyter pointed out that when the refrigeration ceases, perishable items can quickly lose their shelf life. He pointed out that the store's top concern is making sure no one consumes tainted food.
"We don't want to take any chances," he said.
The store was able to save a lot of its frozen foods, because it had a refrigerated trailer available.
"Our distributor sent us a reefer trailer, and our people stacked up what we could in the truck," Slyter said.
Despite that, Slyter said the store had to toss a "significant" amount of food.
"And we lost a full day's business," he added.
Even with the losses, Slyter said he was especially grateful for one large blessing: The trees that cut the power lines did not fall the other way and land on Thriftway.
"If they had come our way, our roof would have come down," he explained.
"It was just not a good day," said Dale Connell, vice president/branch manager of White Salmon's Riverview Community Bank.
"We came in like regular Friday morning, opened the vault and got everything ready to go," Connell explained. "Then we called the PUD and they said it would be another 12 hours until we'd have power."
Connell said banks really have no choice but to close if there is no electricity.
"It's a big security concern for financial institutions, and the computers are all down so there's no way to verify anything. We had to close," Connell said.
Connell added that being closed on Friday caught up to them on Monday.
"It was busier than usual on Monday, let's put it that way," he said. "But people have been very understanding and supportive."
Connell, who lives in Trout Lake, was among those praising the PUD employees for their response to the outages.
"The PUD does an absolutely amazing job," Connell said. "I toured Trout Lake Friday afternoon to take a look at the damage, and in five places I saw where power lines were just on the ground. I knew it was going to take a while."
One notable exception to the many business closures was the post office in White Salmon.
"We used flashlights and personal clip-on LED lights," said Postmaster Susan Gross. "We worked in hats and coats, but everything went as planned and we missed no deliveries. We just managed. It was a little difficult for the clerks, but they persevered. I'm really proud of them."
Gross said there weren't as many customers coming in, but employees put signs on the doors letting people know the post office was still open despite the lack of power.
"A lot of people assumed we'd be closed, but we've always been open in power outages," Gross explained.
On Dec. 16, Gov. Chris Gregoire proclaimed a "state of emergency" in all 39 counties of Washington due to widespread damage from the Thursday windstorm. The governor's proclamation directs the state to use its resources to support emergency response activities and assist local communities in recovery efforts.
"We cannot control the weather, but we can make sure that we offer as much support as possible while families and communities work to recover from these storms," Gregoire said. "State agencies are helping, or standing by to help, as local agencies and utilities work to put things back in order."
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