High winds knock out power, close South Whidbey schools on Monday

Thousands of South Whidbey residents woke up without power Monday morning as high winds whipped across the area.

Many others woke up to news that South Whidbey School District campuses would be closed for the day after the winds took out their power. As of Monday afternoon, power was restored on Maxwelton Road, where the South Whidbey schools are located.

“We’ve been pretty busy today and last night,” South Whidbey Fire/EMS Deputy Chief Jon Beck said Monday morning. “We haven’t had any injuries from the winds, but it’s supposed to pick up again later today until 7 p.m.”

According to Lynn Sherk, Puget Sound Energy spokeswoman, 18,000 customers were impacted on Whidbey Island. There were three particularly large outages Monday morning that occurred at 2:25 a.m., which impacted residents in the Saratoga and Baby Island Heights area, the Lone Lake and Goss Lake area and Maxwelton.

From those outages, 959, 588 and 484 customers were impacted respectively.

The outages were caused by fallen trees and vegetation from the high winds, according to the outage map.

There were smaller outages elsewhere that impacted power in the morning and afternoon.

About 100 Scatchett Head households lost power Monday morning, and about 100 more residents in the Sills Road area were affected in the afternoon. Downtown Langley was also left without power near sundown, impacting 128 customers.

Although Freeland didn’t experience as many outages, 74 households were impacted in the Lancaster Road and Double Bluff area around 1 p.m.

Although no injuries were reported to South Whidbey Fire/EMS, Beck said one driver had a close encounter.

“We had one incident where a tree came down in front of a car, took the lines out and broke the car’s windshield,” Beck said.

The incident occurred around 10:30 a.m. Monday to a minivan.

Beck encouraged people to report downed power lined to Puget Sound Energy.