January 14, 2020 Shelton Mason County Journal | ![]() |
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By Kirk Boxiéitner
kbox/e/tner@masoncounty. com
A collision between a
pickup truck and a logging
truck on US. Highway 101 in
Purdy Canyon kicked off the
early morning hours of Jan.
8, engaging agencies that
included the Mason County
Sheriff’s Office, Mason Coun-
ty Public Utility District 1,
the Washington State Patrol
and the state Department of
Transportation.
The WSP reported that
shortly before 5 a.m. on Jan.
8, a 2002 Chevrolet Silverado
pickup driven by 38-year-old
Hoodsport resident Dustin
R. Tobey and a 1997 Ken-
worth logging truck driven
by 32-year-old Rochester resi—
dent Robert A. Whalen were
northbound on US. 101 when
Tobey’s pickup left the read to
the left, rolled over and came
to rest in the northbound lane
of US. 101 on its roof.
Whalen’s logging truck
then struck Tobey’s pickup,
‘and both vehicles ended up in
the northbound ditch of U.S.
101. Whalen, who had been
wearing his seatbelt and was
uninjured, called in the ac-
cident, according to a WSP
news release.
It was unknown at the
time whether drugs or alco-
hol were involved, according
to the WSP. The news release
added that Tobey, whom in-
vestigators were unsure had
Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021 Shelton-Mason County Journal — Page A—13
Truck collision, downed lines block U.S. 101
worn his seatbelt, was air—
lifted to Harborview Medical
Center in Seattle.
Because US. 101 was
blocked in both directions,
MACECOM 911 and the Ma-
son County Sheriffs Office
informed the public of detour
routes. Southbound traffic
from Hoodsport was re-rout—
ed onto Purdy Cutoff Road,
through state Route 106 and
East McReavy and Brockdale
roads, back onto US. 101,
and with northbound traf-
fic. from Shelton doing the
opposite.
WSP spokesperson Chel-
sea Hodgson tweeted that
WSP troopers were on site
to investigate, while WSDOT
handled the detours around
the collision, which the WS-
DOT Tacoma Twitter account
announced was cleared short—
ly before 9:30 a.m.
During the same 41/2-hour
stretch when US. 101 was
closed in Purdy Canyon, the
Sheriff’s Office and the WSP
were called to a downed pow-
er line blocking the intersec-
tion of US. 101 and state
Route 119 in Hoodsport.
Mason County PUD 1
took to its social media chan-
nels to report a power outage
shortly before 6:30 a.m., ex-
tending from Hoodsport “up
past Eldon,” with the Mason
County Sheriff’s Office Face-
book page reporting the pow—
er lines were cleared from the
roadway shortly after 8 a.m.,
after which the PUD 1 so-
cial media were able to post,
shortly before 10 a.m., “Pow—
er restored!” v
According to the PUD 1
Twitter account, one reason
it took a while to fully restore
power was due to cold-load-
ing issues, which forced its
crews to “do some switching,
to bring one of the phases on
from a different direction,”
even as the PUD tweeted to
its customers to conserve
their power use, once the
power came back on.
“Not a bad idea to flip your
breakers off to expensive ap-
pliances and equipment un~
til you’re back on,” the PUD
tweeted. “It protects them
from power fluctuations.”
PUDs respond to floods, mudslides during hectic week
By Kirk Boxleither
kbox/e/tner@masoncounty.com
The first weekendof 2021 saw Ma—
son County Public Works respond
to flooding and mudslides While the
county’s public utility districts braved
the elements to respond to several
power outages. , '
Darin Hall, director of operations
for Mason County PUD 1, and Lynn
Eaton, communications and govern-
ment relations manager for Mason
PUD 3, talked with the Shelton-Mason
County Journal. about the difference
in how flooding affects their respective
agencies.
Eaton noted that PUD 3 mostly
copes with landslides on the north and
south shores of Hood Canal and 9c-
casional flooding near Schafer State
Park.
Hall, meanwhile, said he is accus-
tomed to dealing with overflows of the
Skokomish River and its effects on
US. Highway 101.
“I feel like this fairly sustained lev-
el of flooding is a little bit above what
we tend to see this early in January,”
Hall said. “Of course, the people who
live in this area are used to it, because
whenever the news reports flooding
in Washington state, the Skokom-
ish River is usually the first one they
mention.”
Hall described Jan. 2 as a “pret-
ty busy weekend” for PUD 1, whose
creWs pulled shifts lasting as long as
16 hours, dealing with a downed pow-
er pole on US. 101 at the Skokomish
River Bridge. ' .
That same Saturday saw PUD 3
crews restoring a succession of outages
of their own.
Hall said PUD 1 crews had to con—
sider how closures of US. 101 and
Skokomish Valley Road, caused by
flooding and mudslides, might affect
their ability to respond to reported out-
ages Jan. 2 and Jan. 3.
Both public utility districts charac-
terized Mason County Public Works,
from its road crews to its maintenance
workers, as symbiotic partners with
the PUDs’ own emergency response
outage prevention efforts.
Eaton additionally cited the “good
relationships” between PUD 3 and tim-
ber companies with affording the PUD
access to logging roads, when environ-
mental circumstances stand in the way
of the PUD’s repair and restoration
personnel.
Eaton and Hall said their PUDs
have identified what Hall deemed “the
trouble areas” within their coverage
zones. While PUD 3 deals less directly
with flooding, Eaton pointed out that
enough ground saturation and Wind
can lead to damage to their power poles
and lines as trees become uprooted.
Eaton and Hall touted the work
done over the years to “strategically
mitigate” a number of risks to their.
power poles. That work involves pre-
emptively trimming tree limbs and pa-
trolling lines in heavily forested areas
to determine the exact locations Where
the power has gone down. The PUDs
also considering moving certain power
poles to less endangered, more acces—
sible areas.
Over the years, Hall has learned to
factor “the trouble areas” into strategic
plans and budgets for PUD 1, whether
by moving lines or even putting them
under ground when possible.
Given that simply trimming the
trees near the power lines is a five-to-
seven-year cycle for PUD 1, Hall said
the PUD addresses “trouble areas” as
. it’s able, money and staffing permit-
ting, and as various of those “trouble
areas” become more pressing concerns,
each year. .
PUD 1 conducts “system audits” to
determine those priorities, Hall said,
in addition to pursuing outside funding
to cover the costs of such work, most
often in the form of mitigation grants
from the Federal Emergency Manage-
ment Agency.
Hall credited the PUD’s multiple
substations with allowing its crews
to depower certain lines Without in-
terrupting its customers’ power and
pledged the PUD would remain vigi-
lant in providing prompt updates on
power outages and restoration efforts
on its social media accounts.
Mason PUD 3 has similar practices
to Mason County PUD 1 in its mitiga-
tion, tree-trimming cycles and substa—
tion-switching abilities, Eaton said.
Hall and Eaton reiterated some safety
basics, urging people not to approach
downed power lines (but do call them
in to their PUD and 911), and advising
them against approaching the crews
that arrive on scene so as not to dis-
tract them while they’re performing
potentially dangerous work.
“Call our offices, or follow us online
for updates,” Eaton said. “Do bear in
mind, though, that while we immedi—
ately know when power has gone out in
a given area, it can take time to track
down the specific source of an outage.”
Eaton and Hall warned customers
against overloading the PUDs with
“cold load pickups,” by having all their
appliances turned on and plugged in
when PUD crews attempt to restore
power.
“Rather than forcing the grid to pick
all those power demands back up after
an outage, wait 20 or 30 minutes after
power is restored before turning your
heat on again,” Hall said. ‘
Outages from” Belfair
to Lake Limerick
Both Mason County public utility
districts were kept on their toes by
power outages Jan. 5, all while the
Mason County Sheriffs Office con-
tinued to advise the public of road
closures.
On the evening of Jan. 4, Mason
PUD 3 reported it needed to conduct
an emergency overnight power outage
overnight for Belfair for four hours on
Jan. 5.
“This afternoon, we became aware
of a severely deteriorated cross-arm
on a pole near the QFC in downtown
Belfair,” the PUD 3 Facebook post
stated. “Due to the reliability and
public safety risk, linemen needed to
make repairs immediately, and will
need to take customers and business-
es in the downtown area out of pow—
er from approximately midnight to 4
a.m. to complete the work safely.”
The PUD 3 Facebook page credit-
ed the PUD’s engineering team with
reducing the number of customers af-
fected by rerouting power from an ad—
jacent substation, but it warned many
customers would be affected, includ-
ing much of downtown Belfair, por—
tions of state Route 3 north of Belfair,
Log Yard Road, Riverhill, Mahonia,
Newkirk and surrounding roads.
By 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 5, Belfair had
been restored, but PUD 3 wasn’t done
for the day. The PUD announced an
outage on Old Lyme Road, near Lake
Limerick, affecting slightly more than
100 customers. Linemen were dis-
patched, around 10 a.m., to investi—
gate the cause and make repairs.
Within minutes, PUD 3 announced
workers had arrived and determined
that trees were cut and fell into lines
at the 200 block of Old Lyme Road, for
which they needed to take additional
customers out of power in order to
safely make repairs, which they esti-
mated would take half an hour.
Mason County PUD 1 updated the
public on its social media accounts of
its own power outage due to downed
trees on Jan. 5, at the end of the PUD’s-
line on Mount Walker. It took about
two hours from the time crews were
dispatched to the area, shortly after
12:30 p.m., to the time power was re-
stored shortly before 2:30 pm.
According to PUD, its crews found a
tree down and in the lines at milepost
302, blocking the northbound lane of
US. 101, shortly after 1:30 pm.
Meanwhile, the Mason County
Sheriff s Office announced Jan. 5
that the Skokomish Valley Road was
flooded at milepost 2, and advised the
public to “use caution or alternative
- routes.”
The Sheriffs Office Facebook page
would followed on Jan. 6 by announc-
ing that the Skokomish Valley Road
would remain closed between US. 101
and Eells Hill Road until the morn-
ing of Jan. 7, but the portion between
Eells Hill Road and Upper Vance
Creek vicinity would reopen on the af-
ternoon of Jan. 6.
Storm: Wind topples trees, Skokomish floods again
continued from page A—1
Mason County PUD No. 1 reported, via its on-
line accounts, that it had lines down in multiple lo-
cations and that Bonneville Power Administration
high—voltage transmission lines were also down.
“This storm hit us hard on the coast and the west
side overnight,” John Lahti, BPA transmission field
services vice president, wrote in a- Wednesday mom-
ing news release. “Our crews are working to assess
the damage, and repair lines as quickly and safely as
encing outages.”
possible to restore power to our customers experi-
In addition to power outages, rain from the storm
also caused havoc on county roads and rivers.
Preliminary flood gauge data from the Skokom-
ish River provided by the NWS’s Advanced Hydro-
logic Prediction Service showed the river reached
17.81 feet at 5:15 a.m. Wednesday at a measuring
station near the US. Highway 101'bridge over the
river. If confirmed, that would be the fifth-highest
level recorded on the river, slightly higher than the
17.77-foot crest recorded on Jan. 24, 2020. A river
depth of 16.5 feet is considered flood stage. .
A landslide also occurred late Tuesday on US.
101 north of Lilliwaup, partially blocking the high-
way. Troopers made a suspected DUI arrest at the
scene after a driver tried to bypass the roadblock, ac-
cording to Trooper Chelsea Hodgson, a Washington
State Patrol spokesperson. .
Another water-related closure occurred just after
midnight on state Route 302 near Victor Road east
of Allyn due to a sinkhole in the road.