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| January 5, 2023 Shelton Mason County Journal |  |
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January 5, 2023 |
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By Matt Baide
matt@masoncounty. com
The past two weeks in Mason Coun- .
ty has seen several extreme weather
events. \
On Dec. 23, the county had to deal
with freezing rain and cold, making
roads slick and taking out power for
several Mason PUD customers. On
Dec. 27, the county had a' low pres-
sure system that included high winds
coinciding with a king tide, causing
flooding and damage throughout Ma-
son County.
‘Mason County commissioners
hosted an emergency meeting on Dec.
27 and approved a'resolution’for a
countywide state of emergency and
the use of county resources to assist
the community, activate emergency
resources and approval for County
Administrator Mark Neary to sign
any necessary agreements in response
to the emergency.
“We have severe flooding that has
been reported in the Hoodsport areas,
in North Mason Belfair areas,” Neary
said during the emergency meeting
Dec. 27. “The lower portion of Elf—‘
endol Pass Road closed due to fallen
trees. East Hummingbird Lane house
is flooded with water .up to mid—calf,
four people and a pet were rescued. .
State Route 300, Northeast Sand Hill
Road, flooded, DOT is on the scene.
11991 East State Route 106, there’s a
house flooding. 9433 NE Shore Road,
looks like there’s flooding up there too.
...We have king tides all of this week.
So king tides with heavy rain and
snow melt definitely is putting us into
a flooding situation and so we have
wanted to get this sent out. I have
talked with all three commissioners
earlier this morning and agreed we
should get this meeting together.”
,. r . Commissioner «,Randy v ,Neatherlin
said this is not a “big, giant catastro-
phe or something like tha .”
“This is general business for us to
do when these type of things do occur,”
Neatherlin said. “Being that there’s a
king tide, the water that’s melting off
or coming down doesn’t have ready ac-
cess to get out to the canals and to the
Sound, so therefore it backs up and
makes it even worse when it comes to
flooding. This is something that hap—
pens with us every few years, we go
through this and there’s no reason to
be concerned or alarmed except for
those who are on those waters to take
the special precautions that are nec-
essary to protect you and your family.
This is not something to worry about,
thisis something We deal with more
Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023 Shelton-Mason County Journal - Page 13
Mother Nature’s presence felt in Mason County _
A car drives along state Route 106 on Dec. 27. Photo courtesy of Shannon
Ernst
on ‘a regular basis, you just never
know when it’s going to happen.” ,
From Dec. 23 to Dec. 26, around
6,500 PUD 3 customers lost power, ac-’
cording to PUD 3 spokesperson Lynn
Eaton. L
“The longest area out was the
Northshore and Tahuya Peninsula
customers fed from our Collins Lake
substation,” Eaton wrote to the Jour-
nal. “About 1,000 customers were out
for just over 18 hours, another 2,300 .
-; customers-in that area were out for
about 15 hours. About 560 Customers
in the Twanoh Heights area were out
for 14 hours. About 200 customers on
the Mission Creek Road were out for
9% hours. Dec. 26, we had about 1,000
customers in the Matlock area out for
just under five hours. The rest of the
scattered outages were out between
-one to four hours.”
Eaton said the PUD 3 was ready
for the outages and‘monitored the
storm, activity. PUD 3‘ has five line
crews and two tree creWs in addition
to service workers, dirt crews, utility
people, warehousemen and flaggers,
all of whom worked during the ex-
treme weather. ‘
“The safety of our customers and
employees is ‘ always our highest
priority,” Eaton wrote. “We ask cus-
tomers to be'preparedfor these types
of storms and to stay away from
downed power lines. Often on big
storms (this one included) we have
people thinking they are being help-
ful by marking downed power lines
with caution tape, etc. — nothing
upsets our linemen more. These lines
are deadly —— always assume downed
‘ lines are live and stay at least 100 feet
away.”
PUD- 1 General Manager Kristin
Masteller wrote to the Journal the ice
storm didn’t affect PUD 1 that badly.
“We got really lucky. The last ice
storm several years ago was terrible
and people were out for several days,”
Masteller wrote to the Journal. “We
didn’t have-anyone out of power lone
ger than a few hours oVer the week-
end. We. had several small outages
and single customer outages due to
trees and limbs falling.”
Masteller said the snow was the
worst part of the extreme weather,
but the high winds Dec. 27 missed
the west side of Hood Canal and there
were only'a couple small power out-
ages that were restored quickly.
“Our steep terrain along the ca-“
11211 and the narrow, Windy Highway
'101 makes it difficult to access areas
where trees have come down,” Mas»
teller wrote. “Our guys have to cut
their way up the highway and some-
times cut their way back down the
highway. We don’t have tree crews;
our power and water crews do it all.
So, it takes a lot of hard work from
our guys and coordination with our
friends at WSDOT, the counties and
our neighboring public power utili-
ties. After they got our system back
in service, some of our crew members
went north to help out Jefferson PUD
again too. They usually get a lot of
snow like we do, with the higher ele-
vations. That’s what’s great-about the
public power model is that we, all are
here to help eachother take care (if
our collective customers. It’s also why
our PUD service area outages are re-
stored quickly compared to the more
urban areas.”
Masteller wrote about the need for
customers to prepare themselves to
be self-suffiCient for several days in
the case of afmajor storm or outages.
Customers should also have a plan
in place and some stockpile supplies
and a backup battery or generator for
those people who need power for medi-
cal or other health—dependent devices.
Inquiring Mindsseries’ coming to
By, Gordon. Weeks
gordon©masoncounty com
The Northwest’s most pro?
lific bootlegger of the 1920s,
the history of atomic power
in Washington, and a look
back at the 1980 eruption of
Mount St. Helena are the top-
ics of three Inquiring Minds
programs hosted by the Hu-
manities Washington 'Speakv...
ers Bureau and the Harstine
Island Community Club.
This is the 14th year the.
two entities have presented
the programs, which are "
staged at 1:30/p.m.,on the
last Sunday in January,
February and March at the
Community Club, 3371 E.
Harstine Island Road North.
Donations will be accepted to
support Inquiring Minds.
Des Moines resident Steve
Edmiston will talk about the
“Rumrunning'King” at 1:30
p.m. Jan. 29. Edmiston is a
business and entertainment
lawyer, an indie film screen-
writer and producer, founder
of Quadrant45, and c'o-found—
er of The Good Bootlegger’s
Guild. r
He’ll talk about Roy
Olmstead, who evolved from
the youngest lieutenant in >
Seattle Police Department
history to the leader of a
gang that took over bootleg- ‘
ging during prohibition in
theNorthwest. He’ll examine
“The Good Boo'tlegger’s” story
of whiskey-driven politics,
culture wars, criminalization
of popular social behaviors,
illegal surveillance, spies, ,.
sensational trials and trips to
the Supreme Court.
' Steve Olson will talk about
’ Future” at
r-Feb. 26. An
in Seattle,
“Atomic Washington: Our
Nuclear
Past, Pres-
ent and
1:30pm.
WaShingto
native who
.now lives
‘ Olson
Olson is p
a w'riterWhose most recent
book. is “The Apocalypse Fac-
tory: Plutonium and the Mak-
ing of the Atomic Age.” Since
1979, he has been a consul-
tant Writer for the National
Academy of Sciences,.the
President’s Council of'Advi-
sors on. science and Technol-
ogy, and other national scien-
tific organizations.
As Olson'will point out, at
the center of every nuclear
weapon in the United States
is a small pit of radioactive
material manufactured at a
top-secret facility in Eastern
Washington,'a facility that
remains the most radiologi- ,
cally contaminated site in the
Western hemisphere.
Washington today has two
operating‘nuclear reactors,
one of which provides about
10% of our electricity, he
states. Radioactive p .
substances are used in Wash-
ington to cure diseases, build
airplanes, detect pollutants
and power smoke detectors.
Naval Base Kitsap has the
largest stockpile of nuclear
weapons in the country.
V EricWagner will talk
about “After the Blast: Mount
St. Helens 40 Years Later”
at 1:30 p.m. March 26. The
Seattle resident is a writer
1 ‘ and biologist who earned a
doctorate degree in biology
from the University of Wash-
ington, where he studied
13' nguiusr-‘He is author of
three bookaiixiéiudmg “After '
the BlastzThe Ecological Re-
covery of Mount St. Helens.”
Mount St. Helens erupted
May 18, 1980‘,_killing 57 pee; '
ple and causing hundreds of
square miles of destruction.
Scientists who visited the
, site soon after the eruption
were stunnedto find plants V
sprouting up through the
ash and animals'skittering
around downed trees. wagner
will talk about the surprising
ways plants and animals sur-
vived the eruptibn, the com—
plex roles people have played,
and the continued fascination
with the mountain.