“Joe Mead loads rounds cut from a fallen tree on his parents’ Maxwelton Valley farm Monday. The tree fell across a wire fence, taking out a portion of it. None of the cows in the pasture were injured or escaped through the fence.Matt Johnson / staff photo It had been years since South Whidbey had seen anything like the windstorm that struck the island Thursday night and Friday morning. It’s also been a while since Southenders have had to put so much time into cleaning up after the winds died down.When the cost is finally tallied, the damage caused by the gale could total in the million dollar range. Between broken electric lines, damaged and destroyed homes and the cleanup costs racked up by the Island County road crews that had to clear debris off the roads, thousands of dollars were burned up every hour.Few know this better than Puget Sound Energy’s Karl Kirn. Kirn said PSE spent money hand over fist during the weekend restoring power to hundreds of thousands of customers on Whidbey Island and in Skagit, Whatcom and Snohomish counties.We’ve spent millions, Kirn said.Even with all that money, it took time to turn the power on in South Whidbey homes after fallen trees snapped lines at March Point in Anacortes. Renewed electrical service crept down the island only as fast as repair crews could splice and re-hang broken and dangling power lines.Oak Harbor was the first area to get power back, lighting up again at 9:30 a.m. Friday. Coupeville was back on at 11 a.m.But South Whidbey had to wait much longer. Freeland did not get power until 5:30 p.m., while Langley remained in the dark until about 7 p.m. Portions of Clinton, including Scatchet Head, stayed in blackout even longer. Power did not make it there until Saturday night. And with the onset of a second windstorm Saturday morning, falling trees on roads near Holmes Harbor cut power again in the vicinity for much of that day as well.A few PSE customers were still without power early this week.There are still some isolated customers who can’t be connected, Kirn said.To fight the blackout blues, thousands of Southenders flipped on their generators. Brett Richter, manager of Double R Rentals at Bayview, said his business rented out its entire lineup of eight generators between Friday and Saturday. That has not happened in a long time.I can’t remember the last time that happened, Richter said.Once they were powered back up — either by repaired electric lines or generators — South Whidbey residents took a look around them. On Saratoga Road near Baby Island, a tree measuring more than four feet in diameter fell onto a home owned by David Thomley and Linda Desmond. The couple and their teenage daughter were not home when the tree fell. Neighbors Liz and George Neroutsos said they heard the tree fall at about 1 a.m. Friday. When they looked outside, they saw that the 1930s-era home had been completely crushed by the giant tree.We didn’t realize what it was at first, Liz Neroutsos said.The Neroutsos’ said the home’s destruction came as a shock to neighbors. Once called Baby Island Manor, the home was a landmark in the neighborhood.Perhaps busier than anyone except the PSE line crews that were repairing overhead wires until late Monday was the Island County Roads Department. Crews from the Bayview Road Shop were out with chainsaws, backhoes and dump trucks long before daybreak Friday, cutting, moving, chipping, and hauling downed trees. Road crew members at the road shop said they had a fair bit of clearing to do, especially on a section of Saratoga Road near Bells Beach. County workers were still clearing debris there Monday.Islanders did not receive advance warning of the high winds. Weather forecasts Thursday night had predicted winds topping 35 to 40 mph, not the 70 mph gusts that actually started hitting the island around 11 p.m. Thursday. “