UPDATE: Issaquah outages have been reduced to a handful in Olde Town and lower Issaquah/Hobart. The Issaquah Community Center has reopened and returned to its regular schedule.
Hundreds of households in the Issaquah and Sammamish area remain without power Friday morning following a night of high wind gusts.
Nearly 200 addresses were left powerless around Pine Lake and southeast of Skyline High School in Sammamish, as well as more than two dozen addresses near Northeast Inglewood Hill Road and Sammamish Parkway Northeast, according to Puget Sound Energy’s outage map. The customers closest to Skyline were expected to see power returned by 2 p.m., with other locations remaining under investigation.
Meanwhile, 486 addresses were without power in the Sycamore area of Issaquah with no estimated restoration time. Six addresses in Olde Town remain without power as well.
Clark, Issaquah Middle School, Issaquah High School and Tiger Mountain Community High School were all closed for the power outages, as was the Issaquah Community Center.
City communications warned residents via Twitter not to use charcoal or gas-powered equipment indoors during the outage, to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
The National Weather Service forecasted high winds for the Northwest region from 6 p.m. Thursday night to 4 a.m. Friday, with sustained winds above 35 miles per hour and gusts up to 60 miles per hour. Puget Sound Energy gathered 30 crews to the Puget Sound region from as far as British Columbia and Eastern Washington to combat expected outages.
As of 10 a.m. Friday, more than 43,000 energy customers remained without power in 730 areas of PSE’s territory. Hardest hit were Whidbey Island, Kitsap County and Thurston County.
